aKTOmaR
V Inter-University Performance Review
PROGRAM:
January 8, 2026 (Thursday)
18:00–19:00: Master Performance: Olivier de Sagazan, “Transfiguration”
19:00–19:30: Break
19:30–21:30: Student Performances
21:30–22:00: Master Performance: Bogdan Achimescu
January 9, 2026 (Friday)
18:00–18:50: Master Performance: Franko B., “A Long and Short History of Violence Told by Me”
18:50–19:00: Break
19:00–22:00: Student Performances
22:00–22:20: Master Performance: Mark Nieuwenhuis, Piotr Urbaniec, “Hejnał”
January 10, 2026 (Saturday)
15:00–17:00: Panel discussion moderated by Paul Harrison with representatives from Perform Riga, Perform Bergen, and Perform Istanbul
18:00–19:00: Master Performance: Masja Nor Nødtvedt, “Kutt”
19:00–19:30: Break
19:30–21:30: Student Performances
21:30–22:30: Master Performance: Kurt Johannessen, “Øyvind and the Øyvind Plan”
aKTOmaR V Inter-University Performance Review is intended for audiences aged 16+.
TICKETS:
All performances require a full-day pass (PLN 50 regular ticket, PLN 20 reduced ticket). You can also purchase a pass (PLN 100), valid for all three days of the showcase.
Tickets for individual days and the three-day pass are available online:
Day 1 >>> CLICK
Day 2 >>> CLICK
Day 3 >>> CLICK
Pass (three-day ticket) >>> CLICK
aKTOmaR
V Inter-University Performance Review
aKTOmaR is currently the largest student performance festival in Europe, aimed at students of art universities in Poland. The event will take place on January 8–10, bringing together representatives of academic institutions as well as many renowned artists from Poland and abroad. The purpose of the review is to present educational achievements in the fields of action art, performance, audio art, and meta-theatrical practices.
aKTOmaR is a space for the exchange of experiences, discussion, and the broadening of perspectives on performance art. Meetings with established artists, student presentations, and workshops foster the development of practical skills and critical thinking about action art, while also highlighting its wide social and cultural potential. The review seeks to strengthen cooperation between art academies, encouraging the search for innovative forms of expression and the raising of educational standards in the field of performance.
Thus, aKTOmaR is not only a presentation of the most current phenomena in the realm of action art, but also a platform for dialogue and an impulse for the further development and professionalization of performance in Poland and across Europe.
Funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU.
ARTISTS
Olivier de Sagazan
Born in Congo in 1959. After studying biology, he devoted himself to painting and sculpture. For over twenty years, he has been developing a hybrid practice that combines painting, sculpture, and performance. His work has been exhibited worldwide. “Transfiguration” was created in 1998 and has since been presented more than 300 times in 25 countries.
The performance “Transfiguration” embodies the unfulfilled desire of a painter and sculptor to breathe life into his work. In a gesture of desperation, he begins to sculpt the clay placed upon his head, buries himself in its substance, erases his identity, and becomes a living work of art. Yet the material seals his eyes, forcing the artist to look inward, into the depths of his own being. In this mesmerizing performance, Sagazan transforms his identity from human to animal, and from animal into various hybrid creatures. In a frantic search for a new form, he pierces, smears, and disentangles layers of clay on his face. In “Transfiguration,” he gives new meaning to the concept of life, offering a compelling, unsettling, and deeply moving vision of an alternative identity, unrestrained by inhibitions.
Masja Nor Nødtvedt
She is a Norwegian performance and multimedia artist specializing in sculpture and installation. Through the body, sound, and materials, Nor explores the encounter between the human and the foreign, between ritual and violence. Her performances draw inspiration from Norwegian black metal, folk traditions, and the legacy of Viennese Actionism, balancing between intimacy and extremity. In her practice, Nor investigates how sensory experiences—such as sound, smell, and touch—can trigger physical and emotional responses in audiences, challenging the boundaries between artist, viewer, and space.
In the performance “Kutt,” Masja Nor Nødtvedt constructs a ritual environment in which her body is connected to a network of plastic pipes suspended from the ceiling. These pipes function as symbolic extensions of the body—a system of artificial life support, control, or dependency. During the performance, Nor methodically cuts the pipes, allowing their contents to flow out and transform the surrounding space. This act becomes a tangible reflection on human vulnerability within systems of technological manipulation, transhumanist desire, and ritual sacrifice. By combining the mechanical with the organic, the performance exposes the tension between connection and rupture, between artificiality and the sacred.
Franko B.
Born in Milan, he moved to London in 1979. In Italy, he is Professor of Sculpture at the Accademia Albertina di Belle Arti di Torino. His practice encompasses drawing, installation, performance, and sculpture. Franko B., a pioneer of body art, a leading performance artist, and an activist, uses his own body as a tool to explore personal, political, and poetic themes of resistance, suffering, and a reminder of his own mortality and vulnerability. His works are held in the collections of Tate, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the South London Gallery, the permanent collection of the City of Milan, and a/political in London, and his archives are housed in the Theatre Collection at the University of Bristol and in the LGBTQIA+ Archive at the Bishopsgate Institute in London.
The performance “A Long and Short History of Violence Told by Me” is a mirror reflecting untold stories from the past and present, as well as unspoken narratives that continue to reside in the collective consciousness. In the performance, Franko B. not only shares stories but also assumes the role of a witness to the turbulent currents of history and human experience.
Paul Harrison
Together with John Wood, he forms a British artist duo (collaborating since 1993), creating video art that employs humor, irony, and conceptual acrobatics to explore relationships between the human body, objects, and architecture. Their works (held in, among others, Tate and MoMA) often feature simple props, creating scenes that are at once absurd and meticulously crafted, at times evoking the style of silent films.
Paul Harrison will lead the panel discussion scheduled for the final day of the showcase, entitled “The Condition of Performance in Europe.” Moderated by Paul Harrison (Harrison & Wood), the panel will feature three speakers: Azra Ismen (Performistanbul), Masja Nødtvedt (Performance Art Bergen), and Laine Kristbergi (Riga Performance). Each will present their work in a short Pecha Kucha format (20 slides, 20 seconds each = 6 minutes and 20 seconds), followed by a joint discussion on the current state of performance.
Kurt Johannessen
He is a Norwegian artist working in the fields of performance art, installation, video, and graphic design. Since the early 1980s, he has presented his work across Europe, Asia, and the Americas. Kurt’s works are usually poetic and minimalist. He has exhibited in galleries and museums in Norway, including the Bergen Art Museum and Kunstnernes Hus (2007), as well as Kunstnerforbundet (2016). He works with text and publishes his own artist books. Johannessen’s textual works are typically short, visually oriented, poetic, and sometimes humorous. He has published over 120 books. Since 2013, many of his publications (About Something / Om noko) have formed the basis of performative lectures. These books combine philosophy, visual arts, poetry, and science.
The performative lecture “Øyvind and the Øyvind Plan” is based on the book of the same title. It addresses the notion of planning as a practice and examines the process through which a plan (Øyvind’s Plan) comes into contact with reality and is transformed into action and movement. These movements are not a simple realization of the plan’s assumptions, but constitute phenomena of a qualitatively different nature. Moreover, within real space there exist many other parallel movements with which the movements resulting from Øyvind’s Plan must constantly negotiate their existence.
Bogdan Achimescu
Born in Timișoara, Romania. He studied art at the Academy of Visual Arts in Cluj and received his diploma from the Faculty of Graphic Arts at the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. He works in drawing, photography, and installation. His practice explores themes of genetic inheritance, political dystopia, and, more recently, imagined architecture and artifacts. He represented Romania at the Venice Biennale in 2001 as part of the Context Network project. His works are held in numerous collections in Poland and internationally (including MoMA, the Uffizi, and others).
He has also been active in art education at higher art institutions in Poland (Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków in 1992–93 and from 2007 to the present), Romania (Academy of Visual Arts in Cluj, 1995), and the United States (annual contracts with the University of Virginia in 1999–2000 and 2002–04; University of Arizona in 2001–02, as well as lectures at several other universities). He has presented solo exhibitions in Europe, Asia, and the Americas.
Mark Nieuwenhuis
He is a trumpeter, composer, and sound designer based in Amsterdam. He studied musical composition at the Utrecht School of the Arts (HKU). His work focuses on the circulation of energy between the performing artist and the receiving audience—and on the moment when this relationship becomes a balanced interaction. Questions related to this idea have found many answers in his artistic explorations, realized through performing in various musical styles and composing music for theatre, dance, film, and art installations.
He has performed in numerous venues around the world, meeting and connecting with people in many different ways. In the Netherlands, these include festivals and stages such as Lowlands Festival, Oerol Terschelling, Paradiso, and Melkweg, as well as international appearances at the Ollin Kan Festival in Mexico City, Koko in London, Ancienne Belgique in Brussels, the Mawazine Festival in Morocco, and Teatro Vrachon in Greece. He continually seeks new positive interactions—ways of connecting with what is invisible and unheard.
Piotr Urbaniec
Visual artist and performer. He studied at the Transmedia Studio of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków (2014, prof. B. Achimescu), the Spatial Practices Studio at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw (2016, prof. M. Bałka), and at DAS Theatre in Amsterdam (2023). He is a recipient of the Grand Prix at Młode Wilki 2014 and of the Hestia Artistic Journey program, after which he completed a residency at Residency Unlimited (New York). He realized a solo exhibition at Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art (Project Room, 2016) and received the main prize at In Out Festival 2016.
He has taken part in residencies at Skowhegan (USA) and De Ateliers (Amsterdam). His performances have been presented, among others, at Frascati Theatre, Komuna Warszawa, and the Giswil International Performance Festival. He is a recipient of scholarships from the Polish Minister of Culture, the City of Kraków, the Mondriaan Fund, and the Stokroos Foundation. Recently, he has been developing a cycle of works on weather and perception, shown at the Muzeum Susch (Switzerland, 2023), NAIRS (Switzerland, 2023), BAU (Netherlands, 2025), and Steirischer Herbst (Austria, 2024–25).
Student Performances:
Władysław Strzemiński Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź
Agata Goździk, Żaneta Górska, Julia Sosnowska
Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław
Julia Borowiecka, Jarosław Słomski, Tadeusz Sośnierz
Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk
Kacper Podliński, Antoni Trzaska, Oska Żuk
Magdalena Abakanowicz University of the Arts in Poznań
Agata Małyszczak, Dariia Silchuk
Faculty of Arts, University of Zielona Góra
Orestes Karkut
Academy of Art in Szczecin
Kacper Janowski, Gabriela Łajtar, Sofiia Povirenna
Faculty of Arts, Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin
Jarosław Koziara
Faculty of Fine Arts, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń
Kinga Tecmer, Mikołaj Zapiec
Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw
Francesco Imperatrice, Kamil Kucharzewski, Lucy Steppa
Institute of Fine Arts, University of Rzeszów
Irmina Kowalska, Maksymilian Stopa
Jagiellonian University in Kraków
Suri Stawicka, Wojciech Węgrzyn
Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski Krakow University
Ewa Kinas, Mila Kolaj
Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków
Kiril Aleksandrov, Oleksii Bosenko, Franciszek Geissler, Michał Kowalczys, Piotr Sędkowski, Martyna Tamborska, Nela Tąta
Latvian Academy of Arts
Velta Gūtmane
