Vernissage “Up In The Gods” | Sacrum Profanum

It used to be! The theatres were entered in the light of golden candelabra, the finely wrought doors to the gallery were surrounded by rows of marble columns. Real temples of art. “Why did we exchange this beauty for modernist bricks?!” — mutters the perpetually disgruntled internet commentator, forgetting that it was a world only for the elect. And the palace forms were one of the class protective barriers. All if the people did not mix with the elites, who were perfectly aware of the established order and could be perfectly malicious in calling it. Therefore, in London theaters, the highest and cheapest row of chairs, from which little could be seen, was called “at the gods.”

About the event

The situation proposed by Jakub Julian Ziółkowski and Si On during the Sacrum Profanum festival breaks with the division into the stage and the public, the high and the low. They not only redefine social differences, but also push the boundaries of reality. The work of Ziółkowski and Si On, especially in their dialogue with each other, escapes simple aesthetic and geographical categories, is divided between what we understand as Western and Far Eastern art, mixes what is from official visual circulations with what remains on their periphery. The implementation in Cricoteka takes the form of “place in place”.

Painting in the form of large-format fabrics marks the place of “knitting”, the rhythm of which is ordered by anthropomorphic totems and planned musical events and the audience present at them. In the installation “Up in the gods” Ziółkowski and Si On invite everyone to the center of events, to a space bordering on theatrical scenography, an environment made of fabrics and sculptures, and a place of unidentified worship. It is here during a series of musical performances that a neo-Shaman experience of non-religious spirituality will be possible, in which a new/other unmediated communality can be born.

Yes, the gods came down from heaven, for there was no place for them.

Creators

If He, Jakub Julian Ziółkowski — Up in the Gods (2026)

curator: Kamil Kuitkowski

curatorial cooperation, production: Anna Bargiel

collaboration: Mirka Bałazy

Sacrum Profanum 2026

Between 6 and 11 November Krakow will become a space for new music, filled with the rhythm of ritual and the colors of instruments from different parts of the world. The 24th edition of the Sacrum Profanum festival will present events combining ancient traditions with experiments open to the future and will touch on everyday places filled with silence: among others, the Main Reading Room of the Jagiellonian Library. The heart of the Sacrum Profanum 2026 program will be a joint installation by a Korean-Polish pair of artists — Si On and Jakub Ziółkowski.

The main line of the 24th edition is the Ritual, six concerts planned for the space created by the festival's residents — Si On and Jakub Ziółkowski — in Cricoteka. “Large-format painted fabrics and humanoid figures from used clothes will build a world reminiscent of a ritual tent: a place created for the duration of the festival, suspended between the gallery and the space of the ceremony,” says Krzysztof Pietrašewski, artistic director of the Sacrum Profanum festival. “Inside there will be an intimate stage around which the audience will sit. Each day, two performances will be combined by a musical-ritual intervention by Ziółkowski, who will step into the role of master of the ceremony,” he adds. “The situation proposed by Jakub Julian Ziółkowski and Si On during the Sacrum Profanum festival breaks with the division between the stage and the public, the high and the low,” notes Kamil Kuitkowski, curator of the installation co-realized with Cricoteka entitled Up in the gods.

This unusual setting will promote close contact between the audience and artists from different parts of the world. As part of the Ritual band, there will be concerts combining artists representing different styles: from the meditative dialogue of Clara Lévy with the music of Hildegard from Bingen, to the energetic explosion of sound performed by Ryosuke Kiyasu. During the six concerts of the band Ritual there will also be performances by Timothy Archambault (pibigwan — traditional Algonquian flute), Eyvind Kang (viola d'amore), Jessica Kenney (voice), Madhuvanti Pal (rudra vina — Indian string instrument) and the WCIAS band extracting avant-garde potential from Wielkopolska folk. The audience will be able to hear live both the antique aulos recreated by Lukas de Clerck and completely new instruments, constructed for the needs of contemporary compositions.

In the evening part, the festival will move from Cricoteka to a space filled with silence every day. The Sinfonietta Cracovia Orchestra together with Katerina Gryvul and Agata Zemlya will take the audience on a musical journey inspired by the paintings of Józef Chełmoński. In turn, the Polish Radio Choir will create a unique experience of immersion in the music of Krzysztof Penderecki and contemporary composers, which will sound from almost every corner of the Reading Room of the Main Jagiellonian Library. The final touch of the concert will be Come to the Edge! by Cecilie Ore, a composition dedicated to the opponents of the Putin regime, which takes on an even stronger anti-authoritarian meaning after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The Sacrum Profanum Festival remains committed to the most current and pressing issues of today, giving voice to artists. Among this year's proposals there will be creative ecological manifestos or music that challenges the omnipotence of algorithms. The French collective La Nòvia will perform the music of Conlon Nancarrow and Jessica Ekomane for the first time in Poland in a program that confronts the technologies of the future and the human dimension of music.

The November festival also invites you to experience new music together. Everyone will find a convenient way to discover new music for themselves: from a casual meeting with contemporary artists (e.g. Barbara Drazkov) at the Domówki convention in the Hevre club in Kraków's Kazimierz, through workshops, events for children, to the March for Independent Music. This year the colourful procession, which is becoming a permanent tradition of Sacrum Profanum, will be led by resident artists from the La Nòvia collective. “This is a joyous celebration of Independence Day, which is open to everyone. We encourage all Cracovians to march together along Grodzka Street to the Main Market Square. There is no single score or melody here, but we will be united by a multi-voice and a space to hear each other,” says Carolina Pietyra, director of the Krakow Festival Office.

More information about the program at: www.sacrumprofanum.pl/program

Tickets available for sale from 10.09.2026 on the website: KBF: tickets.

Organizers of Sacrum Profanum: City of Krakow, Krakow Festival Office