One of the most profound social transformations of our time concerns the ways we see, perceive and understand the body. It is not only about empowering intimacy or questioning who holds power within the discourse of sexuality — who creates laws, double standards, or the “scaffolding” of rape culture. The body has become a new humanistic challenge. Sexuality and reproduction politics, feminism, gender studies, queer theory, LGBT movements and concepts of new masculinities — all of these shape contemporary social development as well as new artistic and political visions.
We are discovering that the body is a script of social expectations and gendered stereotypes, but also a site where new forms of freedom emerge — a space of resistance and strategies against oppression. The #MeToo movement defends the right to dignified intimacy; the fight against gender-based violence affirms the rights of women, queer and LGBT people; post-pornography reclaims the “right to sex” beyond domination and hegemony.
Visual art, theatre and dance — fields grounded in representation — respond in especially powerful ways to this new understanding of the body. These are the places where a new revolution unfolds: renewed ideas of desire and sexuality, new scripts of intimate fulfillment, and the foundations of a new social pact. What roles do theory and art play in this evolving humanistic landscape?
Speakers:
Kle Mens (Klementyna Stępniewska) — visual artist working across painting, video, objects and drawing. Winner of the main prize of the 12th Geppert Competition (2016), graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw (2014). Her works — held in the collection of the National Museum in Gdańsk and private collections — have been exhibited widely in Poland and abroad.
Remigiusz Ryziński — philosopher and writer, university professor. Recipient of fellowships from the French Government, the Schuman Foundation, the Nippon Foundation, the City of Warsaw, the Polish-German Cooperation Foundation, and the Polish Ministry of Culture. Translator and theorist of feminism, masculinity studies and gender/queer studies; studied under Julia Kristeva in Paris.
Author of Foucault in Warsaw, Stranger Than Fiction, My Life Is Mine and Operation Hyacinth. His books have been nominated for major literary prizes and translated into several languages.
Founder of the Queer Book Festival in Warsaw; laureate of the NatWest LGBT+ Diamonds Award (2018).
Dr hab. Arti Grabowski, Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków — interdisciplinary artist working in painting, performance and video; director and actor. Graduate of the Sculpture Department of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków and long-time faculty member. Co-creator of Poland’s first degree-granting Performance Art Studio. Since 2018 head of the studio; since 2024 director of the Doctoral School at the Academy.
Curator and organizer of performance art events including the “Interakcje” International Festival, the “Bipolar” Performer Meetings, and the intercollegiate performance review “AKTOMAR”.
Agnieszka Szpila — writer, eco-feminist, cultural researcher and activist. Her books and essays (for Krytyka Polityczna, OKO.press) address discrimination, especially toward people with disabilities. Her acclaimed and widely translated novel Heksy examines the persecution of women in witch trials. She treats literature as a socio-political project.
Her latest book, Octopussy and Other Post-Porn Stories (2024), explores new dimensions of sexuality at the end of the Anthropocene.
Moderator:
Dr Agata Araszkiewicz — lecturer, researcher, art critic and feminist activist; Doctor of Humanities affiliated with the Laboratory for Feminist and Gender Studies at Paris 8 University and with the PHILIXTE research centre at the Université Libre de Bruxelles.
Author of I Give You My Life: The Melancholy of Zuzanna Ginczanka (2002), The Forgotten Revolution (2013), and the essay collection Haunted by Smoke (2012).
Editor and commentator of works by Luce Irigaray and Paul B. Preciado; co-curator of major exhibitions on Ginczanka and on feminist politics.
Member of the Council of the Polish Women’s Congress and programme advisor to the Belgian Women’s Congress. Lives in Paris and Brussels.
