presents
Ephemera

Ephemera Festival again begins with an opening at Warsaw’s Leto Galley with Wiktor Striborg’s exhibition Side Hole, featuring guest participation from Aleksandra Waliszewska and Ignacy Kamiński.

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We all have holes: securely plugged, covered up and spritzed with scent. In polite society, it’s unacceptable to even admit that these apertures exist – we’re meant to act as though our fellow perforated interlocutors don’t share the same holes. The only ones who truly possess such abominations are OTHERS, those who aren’t here, those sitting in their little houses, inside their stolid walls, the wallpaper peeling, as they hole away shamelessly, pouring all types of hideous substances into their many orifices. The only thing standing between you and these vile places is a tiny little hole. Don’t even dare to peek in because something might leak out!

Directed by Maciej Pisarek, the 2008 documentary Solo is a unique exploration into the world of composer and writer Bogusława Schaeffer. Taking place in the courtyard of Szkoła, the screening is tied to the release of a new album by American duo Matmos which reimagines the music of Schaeffer. Ahead of their Saturday concert, Matmos will discuss their Schaeffer project with Warsaw curator Michal Mendyk, who was its initiator.

Two works at the intersection of performance art and music.

Community of Grieving was originally commissioned for Unsound 2020 online as a shared collective listening piece. Described by Poland’s Zosia Hołubowska and Sweden’s Julia Giertz as ‘an audio ritual to collectively submit into intermission’, the piece draws on traditions of vesper and lament and was recreated as a live performance at Unsound 2021 involving live electronics, vocals, performance and set design. Community of Grieving now has its Warsaw debut, the second-ever show following the release of the music as an EP.

Opening is a collaboration between Ukrainian performance artist and activist Taras Gembik and Ukrainian musician Zoi Michaliova titled Lost Land, At Least Appear To Me In A Sick Dream. The work will draw on dissident poetry of Ukraine, connecting intergenerational voices in an act of solidarity in the face of the atrocities of war and the experience of displacement. Costumes will be designed by Ukrainian artist Planeta.

Performers will be joined by Julia and Alina Dedenova playing on traditional Ukrainian kobzas. Half of the ticket income from these performances will be donated to a selected organisation supporting queer youth in Ukraine. Funds will also be collected throughout the festival. 

Heavenly Bodies, an edible installation created by Warsaw’s Pola Salicka i Pola Sutryk in collaboration with the Kobiety Wędrowne initiative, involving herbs, leaves, flowers, colours and rituals. 

Set in what was once a school playground at Komuna Warszawa, the scenography will be created by Ukrainian artist Planeta, while vodka and beer tasting is provided by Browar Tenczynek. Famed duo Matmos will perform, creating music by sampling food and drinks, their show followed by a ritualistic set from Ukrainian artist Facheroia. Elsewhere in the former school, queer Warsaw artist Bella Ćwir will read fragments from the new Polish translation of Marcel Proust’s Rememberance of Things Past.

19:00 doors

20:00 Lee Gamble: Models

20:50 Caterina Barbieri LIVE

Caterina Barbieri is at the forefront of a new movement of modular synth music, and on her upcoming album Spirit Exit also experiments with string instruments, voice and guitar, drawing inspiration from women philosophers, mystics and poets, including St. Teresa D’Avila, Rosi Braidotti and Emily Dickinson.

Lee Gamble’s Models is another step in an evolving work, an Ephemera commission based on spectral voices, with the UK artist working with Joseph Colonel (Artificial Intelligence Programming) and a Polish team including Łukasz Wojtysko (dramaturg), Paweł Sakowicz and Karolina Kraczkowska (performers) and Jacqueline Sobiszewski (lighting designer).

Following the Ephemera concerts on Friday night, this free after party takes place on the banks of the Wisla River at Paloma Bar, and is presented with Warsaw label Dom Trojga. Shows include a DJ sets from Ukraine’s Poly Chain and from Olivia – both with recent releases on Dom Trojga. Label head and city legend Eltron will bring the summer and euphoric vibes. Special guest in the house is Congolese DJ and producer Chrisman, representing Nyege Nyege. Come one, come all!

22:00 Eltron

23:30 Chrisman

00:30 Poly Chain

02:00 Olivia

Ephemera returns with another event in Puro Warszawa – from 5pm in Loreta Bar Young Majli and Madikoptah will play b2b with an ephemeral selection of bass-heavy tracks guiding us into full festival mode. 

Taking place across two daytime sessions, this workshop engages a small number of participants to create an olfactory interpretation of Warsaw in the context of Ephemera. Run by Katarzyna Korytowska, the workshop will consist of a smell walk exploring Warsaw’s olfactory landscape and encouraging deep smelling through natural and urban sites of the city. The cost of the workshop is used solely to cover materials, and all participants leave with a bottle of perfume.

16:00 doors

17:00 Leggerezza

18:00 Matmos

Poland’s Bogusław Schaeffer was celebrated for his innovations in composition, electronic experimentation and radical theatre. For their new album Regards / Ukłony dla Bogusław Schaeffer the Baltimore duo Matmos was given access to the entire catalogue of Schaeffer’s recorded works, which took tissue samples of DNA from past compositions and re-assembled them into new organisms. Now they present the music live.

Opening is Leggerezza, a new project featuring Olga Mysłowska (voice), Michał Pepol (cello) and Patryk Zakrocki (prepared guitar) which explores musical interpretations of Italo Calvino’s American Lessons, a work in search for “those minute, luminous tracings set in contrast to dark catastrophe”.

20:00 Alien Body

20:40 Ecko Bazz

21:30 Machine Girl

A blistering night of music in the outdoor courtyard of Komuna, featuring the long-awaited Polish premiere of cult band Machine Girl colliding punk, grindcore, rave and industrial. Uganda’s Ecko Bazz is connected to the Kampala-based label Nyege Nyege; rapping in politically-incensed Ugandan poetry, he’s also known for fiery live performances. Opening is new Ukrainian electronic duo Alien Body, made up of musician Bohdan Konakov and vocalist Alian Core, blurring pop and experimentation.

Ephemera’s Saturday club night takes place at Jasna 1, curated by the same team responsible for legendary late night Unsound events. The lineup includes the ambient landscapes, noise and experimental music of Croatian Amor, representing Denmark’s ’s Posh Isolation label; Dominican Republic’s Kelman Duran’s hypnotic experiments with reggaeton; the spacious percussive sound of Azu Tiwaline, which takes inspiration from her Tunisian Berber heritage; Kazakhstan’s Nazira, a DJ long long connected to Unsound; Ukraine’s Jana Woodstock; and Poland’s Monster, hermeneia and GWAN. We’ll announce another name or two soon.

W Brzask is a beloved Warsaw series, presenting eccentric and ephemeral lineups at sunrise throughout the summer, in the gardens of Museum of Sculpture at the Królikarnia Palace. This special edition is curated together with Ephemera, with the sun rising to the sounds of Warsaw harpist Anna Pašić , followed by Ukrainian composer, musician and sound artist Katarina Gryvul, and then a sound-performative conversation between artists PRICE and Tobias Koch The session then drifts into the day with surprise DJ sets.

Second part of the scent workshop taking part in Mo 61 Lab. The workshop is run by Katarzyna Korytowska.

A performance of pieces from Mica Levi’s collection of scores entitled *** (star star star) by the alumni of the inaugural edition of Kem School, directed by PRICE.

South London-based Mica Levi is one of the most fascinating artists of their generation, known for their soundtrack work (Under The Skin, Jackie, Zola) and as a member of the groups CURL, Good Sad Happy Bad and Tirzah.

The newest material by Mica Levi is a collection of scores which consist of written text instructions, speech rhythm techniques and drawings, made available as PDFs, with star star star also published as a 24-page pamphlet by London’s Cafe Oto. Kem School is a collective study program developing methods of collective and embodied knowledge production. Kem School is organised by Kem, the Warsaw-based queer feminist collective focused on choreography, performance and sound at the interface with social practice. The performance is an extension of a workshop by PRICE which was part of the first edition of Kem School in the summer of 2021.

List of performers: Stefan Gosiewski, Agata Grabowska, Paulina Pawłowska, Magdalena Siemaszko, Jakub Stępień, Jul Walkowiak, Kamil Wesołowski and Bożna Wydrowska.

PRICE (b.1986, Rio de Janeiro) – a multidisciplinary artist working with performance, music, video and installation. Equally, PRICE is also a construct being used to interrogate ideas around the body, language, the cyclical patterns of the Earth and the existential conundrums which humanity faces in the information age. Previously, his work has manifested at a variety of events and venues across Europe and the Americas, including Arsenic (Lausanne), ImPulsTanz (Vienna), Human Resources (Los Angeles), Galpão Bela Maré (Rio de Janeiro), Performatik (Brussel), KEM (Warsaw) and Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection (Paris).