T H E B O R D E R/G R A N I C A

Performance by Studio WACHOWICZ/FRET

“Initially, the performance T H E B O R D E R/G R A N I C A was supposed to appear as a documentary about Antonina Romanova. The war stopped the performer at the front, but that did not mean that she could not yet be with us in another installment. Further work took me to a completely new place, to which I invited — in the premiere of the performance — Olena Matoshniuk, a painter supporting Ukrainian artists living in Poland. All this was done thanks to Jarosław Fret, who, after hearing Romanova's story, convinced me to recall it, made it present.

T H E B O R D E R/G R A N I C A is a performance about creating a new, intimate language of [No] Present, which ceases to be a “barbed wire”. In writing about the “barbed wire”, I would like to recall the image of a prisoner's dialogue with the outside world or a refugee behind that wire. We keep hearing voices saying that we want humanity, not barbed wire.

T H E B O R D E R/G R A N I C A oscillates on the verge of performance with ritual and solemnity. Before our eyes, it becomes a “rite of passage”, a moment of “receiving and giving” at the same time. It creates a new field in which time is only a “moving picture of eternity.”

T H E B O R D E R/G R A N I C A received its final shape in Scotland during its presentation at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. This version of the performance, with the participation of myself and Antonina Romanova, was created in cooperation with Jarosław Fret, as part of Studio WACHOWICZ/FRET.

The project was born out of the need to give a voice to those whose voices are suspended.” Monika Wachowicz

The performance “T H E B O R D E R/G R A N I C A” received The Scotsman's Fringe First 2024 major award and a nomination for The Brighton Fringe Excellence Award at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

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