Presented as part of Filipka Rutkowska’s exhibition “Gender Is Over”, Hanayo’s performance during Ephemera Festival 2026 draws inspiration from traditional Japanese dance, particularly forms in which a single performer embodies multiple characters through the use of masks.

June 9, 2026, 20:30 PM (20:00 PM entrance), Main Stage
Tickets available HERE.

In the exhibition, Hanayo’s photographs appear to expand the landscape of Filipka’s childhood. They fill a gap in the story of an entire life or suggest a meeting that did not take place in that particular place and time. The artist visited Poland in 1997 and photographed Lower Silesia, including Katowice – the place where six-year-old Filipka was growing up at the time. They met 26 years later, during Rutkowska’s residency trip to Tokyo in 2023. A visit to the Japanese artist’s home turned into a photographic session. It was then that Hanayo gave Filipka a kimono she had worn as a geisha during her coming-of-age ceremony.

The piece unfolds as a lullaby-like narrative – a gentle, bedtime story for a crying child – shifting fluidly between identities, including abstract and gender-fluid transformations. Certain objects and gestures echo distant traditions while intertwining with local references, emerging through an intuitive collaboration with Filipka. These elements remain suggestive rather than explicit, opening a subtle space where cultural traces overlap and transform. The work blends traditional Japanese performative techniques with a contemporary, playful, and site-specific sensibility.

Participation in the performance: Filipka Rutkowska
Curatorial collaboration: Michał Grzegorzek
Production: Monika Balińska