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PERFORMANCE

"Performance is a contact with public...

       ... it is a self-immersive presence..."

Untitled.  Prezent performance. Flander Festiwal. Gdansk. Poland. Photo M Jurkowski

2024

2024

Nest. (non)Return 

Audiovisual performance, 2024 

Group NURT: M. Barabash (video), 

R. Haideichuk (video, programing),
O. Manulyak (sound), 

Y. Shumska (movement).

VIPAW’24 (Venice International Performance Art Week), Palazzo Mora, Venice, Italy. Photo F. Kotsopolou, A. Harbaugh, L. Cini

The metaphor of "native nest" concerns the physical connection with place, culture, and self-identification. Birds have been migrating for thousands of years, following the same routes every time, creating itineraries. Nowadays, the migration paths of birds that are flying round the front lines resemble the world's historical map which is full of white blind spots. The possibility of coming back to the so-called "nest" is an unconditional indicator of avoiding tragic socio-political and cultural events. Presented by PAV and NURT with the support of Perform Europe as part of the “CONSTELLATION” project.

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Keep on

Performance, 2024.

VIPAW’24 (Venice International Performance Art Week), Palazzo Mora, Venice, Italy. 

Photo F. Kotsopolou, L. Cini.

We try to hold on to something that seems less and less stable every day, balancing between "here and there," "today and then," and "now and now." Movement reveals forgotten, unknown, forbidden, or, on the contrary, very familiar stories. Movement, gesture, and action make us exist more meaningfully. It seems to be life.

Presented by PAV Performance Art Video and NURT with the support of Perform Europe as part of the “CONSTELLATION” project.

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Shaken Horizon

Performance, September 21, 2024,

Arctic Action,  Svalbard, Norway.

Oil barrel, wooden board, silver ribbon 20m, landscape of Svalbard.

Gjelder Hele Verden

(Applies worldwide)

Performance, September 18, 2024,

Arctic Action,  Svalbard, Norway.

Road signs, road delimiters - red sticks.

Caution Flammable

Performance, September 14, 2024,

Arctic Action,  Svalbard, Norway.

Gallery space, oil barrel, stones from the surrounding landscape, red marker, mirror, text

Horizon Collapsed

Performance, 2024.

Lviv Media Forum. Jam Factory Art Center, Lviv, Ukraine. Photo A. Telikova
Our horizon has been shaken.

This once pacifying line now creates a wall by flashing every second...

The flickering and fluttering of the atria is an arrhythmia triggered by an upheaval of the steady state.

I try to hold on to the past I know. But the "here and now" sways every figure in the search for the balance of the future – equilibrists who seem to freeze in dynamic movement.

The horizon turns over and falls.

Scars of wounds cover the body like closed eyes. How much they have seen.

But caterpillars always turn into butterflies.  

How can we hold out until this moment, how can we resist?

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When birds settle in the house

.Performance, 2023.
Atelier 213, Federação, Salvador, Brazil.  Photo W. Da Silva

Translation J. Pereira
Window, cord, clothespins, street, local sky.
The sky is so wide, and it is so hard (...)
We are looking for a place again
For birds that fell out of the nest (...)
Horizons are curved, slanted, twisted, torn, broken.
And how can we keep it?
Horizon (...)
And the birds live upstairs in this house.
We all sometimes have an unexpected neighbour (...)

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2023

2023

How long can I stay on one leg?

Performance. September, 2023.
John David Mooney Foundation. Chicago, USA.  Photo J. Gannon

What does it mean "one leg"?

What are we thinking about or imagining when we hear this phrase?

Is it about sides and directions, the right or the left?

Do we visualize a body with one leg or without the leg?

Is it possible to accept this absence or separation?

How often do we deal with that?

You do not need to be in a country where there is a war

to have a feeling of being on one leg,

of standing on one leg

looking for the moment to catch the equilibrium.

I'm not talking just about a physical body.

There is a lot about respect and something new for us today,

which is not new for humanity,

just new for contemporary us, people.

We have to learn how to create support,

how to keep the balance today,

how we become a little more grounded tomorrow.

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Big-scale games

Performance. July 2023
“Stories. The world is more complicated than our truths about it”. Mazovian Museum in Plock, Poland. Images: M. Drigotas, J. Michalska-Iwankiewicz.

​1 metal bucket, 20kg of sand for children's playground.

In a room that looks like an aquarium, I look at people. I look up and my gaze stops on the sky limited by the lines. We are like a fish but in a cage. I try to move confidently in the borrowed shoes – the rhythm is uneven and tired. The rhythm of a washed ashore fish. 

Maybe we can play together in this sandbox? I throw up the sand and it hits the ground loudly. I throw up the sand and everyone around is dissatisfied and confused. It “flies” from the sky to the ground and people run away... "We are having fun!!!!!  Oh, we're having so much fun!!!”

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Does it matter?

Performance, March 2023.

BIFPA´23, Belfast, Northern Ireland.

​4 buckets with sand, bicycle, red high-heeled shoes, echo, poem, sky, window as a cage, memories.

Hovering above the ground.

The sun is in pixels.

There is no echo in this space.

Coordinates are as a key.

When you lie down,

when you lose your balance...

You move as long as the ground is

Sand flies into the sky and returns back Everything returns back.

¨Does it matter? -losing your legs?...

...Does it matter? -losing your sight?...

...Do they matter? -lthose dreams from the pit?...¨ (extract from a poem by S. Sassoon)

Dreams when I was a kid.

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2022

2022

My impersonal story

Performance, November 2022,

We are all connected. Migration Museum, Lewisham, London, UK.

Borrowed shoes, speaker, audio record of a conversation with my father about our relatives, storytelling.

Each personal story goes beyond the limits of an individual when it becomes spoken, recorded, documented.

Following the history of a single person, we discover a considerable amount of geographical, historical, and cultural revelations that begin to exist on a collective level. 

Each story also reveals the people´s connections that exist, were, or are forming. 

Finally, each of us can ask ourselves: "What about my own story?"

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Wolę swoje buty

I prefer my shoes. Performance, November 2022.

Kolo czasu.Torun, Poland.

​Water, borrowed shoes, talking, adhesive tape, dance.

 

 

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Path
Group performance in collaboration with N. Lisova, V. Kaufman, V. Topiy, Y. Shtaida, November 2022,
Ukraine! Unmuted. Ukranian Cross-section Triennial. Kaunas Biennial, Lithuania.
Role of paper, microphone, bicycle.
The performance took place at Laisvės al. in front of the Post office building. It lasted for 1h. These were our stories about the path, about our way today, in 2022.
¨...Experiences of distance, metaphorical, emotional, physical impasse seep through us.
...The shell dissolves, rubs off, peels off, and the space is filled with a memory that has no limits, no borders, no time...¨ - extract from the common concept.

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We won´t have enough weeks to say everyone´s names...

Performance, LOVEvolutionLIFEvolution. Blurborders 2022. BACC, Bangkok / Thailand - Lviv, Ukraine (online)

In a world, where everyone is in hurry, how to spell the deaths, thousand, dozens of thousands of deaths fast?

To Heal the Wound

Series of 3 performances, July 2022,

We will Leave Our Shape Behind. Magic Carpets Landed. Aveiro, Portugal.

1. Sea salt, 15m of red tissue, water from the channel, water from the ocean.

2. Anchor, rope, water trace.

3. Sea salt, bucket, salty water, brush, writing, text. Video

Local

Anchor

Local am I

with the anchor

A local place

is where the anchor is placed

My place searches for a stable trace.

But the wet spot disappears

But the line on me appears

As a trace of the past

As the hope, the present lasts

¨I am here¨.

 

 

Filtering the border

Performance, July 2022,

Streifen. Gorlitz, Germany / Zgorzelec, Poland.

Bridge, orange rope, water from the river, water from the border, water that draws the border, border, vertical.

 

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Memory shelter

Performance, June 2022,

FLOW. Out of Site. Lviv, Ukraine (online).

Walk, writing, coordinates, story, my native district, crossbar.

Video

 

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I hug you tightly

Performance, June 2022,

Park Sztuki. Biala Podlaska, Poland.

Paper 186 x 300 cm, microphone, sound amplifier, watch.

 

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There was the light

Performance, January 2022,

Aude Guillet´s exhibition Lumen. Svitlo Gallery. Lviv, Ukraine.

Sand, matches, light, voice, 3 shells, memories, thread, steps, key, drawing.

Light accompanies the presence. It lasts like a voice as long as there is breathing. We move and create. Each one looks for his own key while being alive. But only the Saints have all the keys. And we can only remember those who are not here. We can only remember the shells from the sea from our childhood.

Dedicated to my husband, Petro.

Video

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2021

2021

Only saints have all the keys. Terra Mater

Performance, November 2021,

Magic Carpets Landed. Kaunas, Lithuania.

Chair, women that work in the Kaunas Picture Gallery, sand, circle, key, talk.

The staff of Kaunas Picture Gallery are women. Some of them have been working there for about twenty years. They know all the corners of the building and its history, and they create its contemporary stories. These women are the soul of this place. But they are mostly invisible people. 

We often lose a person's authenticity and truthfulness through the routine. What about talking to the person and about her?

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Boundary

Performance, September 2021,

FrankoLaboratorium 3.0, Franko Museum, Lviv, Ukraine.

Ivan Franko´s House, corner, brick, construction, ascending, time, red.

Boundary as a line _ of intersection 

Boundary as a line_ to cross 

Boundary _line_ cut 

Boundary_ so

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Grandmother´s trousers |

Svévolnosti

Performance, September 2021,

FNAF. Altenburg 1964, Prague, the Czech Republic.

Dress, black pants, swimsuit, rope, vertical, diagonal, circle, stairs, up and down, storytelling, bucket, water from the river Vltava, cargo ship.

The event takes place on an old cargo ship that is in the water, but it is no longer sailing. "Altenburg 1964" is a place for memories. The river makes the time more visible. This performance is about truthfulness and sincerity as a kind of nakedness. It is a story about my grandmother, who could not swim, never wear pants, and considered many things lewd.

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Presence

Performance, July 2021,

Letino Festival. Letino, Italy. 

Stones, sound, rhythm, eyes, sculptures, people.

The collected local stones retain the history of this place. It is a building material, and it is a piece of nature. These are rough sculptures that tell us about Letino and its inhabitants.

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The point

Performance, streaming, June 2021,

Performance art festival in Tychy. Poland / Corviale, Rome, Italy.

The performance consisted of 2 parts: some people were sitting in front of the screen in Tychy and others were running around observing the real-life of Corviale. While streaming, Piotr Kumor was following the steps of movement in Corviale (A1, black bishop. A8, white rook. B2, w. pawn, etc.) putting the chess figures on the real chessboard that was situated in front of the public in Tychy. "A big grey point is visible from the distance. We need to go closer, to go inside... Corviale is usually conceived as horror but there is so much truth, love and hospitality in this district, building, point. It is a mirror hidden in concrete that reflects the true story of Rome, Italy, Europe... The final point of this chess game is "pat". But I don't put the king on H8.  Corviale is not dead, it is full of tension, movement and changes, full of life. The actual point of Corviale has at least 360° to look around."

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2020

2020

Human

Performance, streaming. December 2020, FNAF. The Czech Republic.

Naked, dress, hanger, rope, 50 m of black elastic, dance, pants.

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FEM

Online performance, December 2020,

FEM_20.

In pair with Deej Fabyc.

2 stones, white dynamic line / voice

1. Each participant prepares a performance of max 5 minutes with no contact between the artists – each in her own country

2. We meet on Zoom

3. We randomly choose pairs of artists.

4. They perform their actions simultaneously.

5. On the screen we only see the two artists.

6. We look for synchronicities

7. Repeated until finishing all the participants

Bread

Performance in streaming, December 2020, Kolo Czasu. Torun (Poland)-Lviv (Ukraine).

Bread, hole, heart.

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Boli (It hurts)

Performance in streaming, November 2020,  Zero Waste. Tyhy, Poland.

Black film, toothpicks, words.

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Looking for the sky

Performance, October 2020,

Franko Laboratorium 2, Lviv, Ukraine.

Bread, water, reflection, hole.

Looking for the sky. Franko Laboratorium

Untitled

Performance, Same Difference: Equinox to Equinox, September 2020, Parc Zalizna Voda. Lviv, Ukraine.

Run, breath, 3m of white paper. 

Group performance in public space.

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CENTER 

Performance, August 2020, Korsak Museum of Contemporary Art. Lutsk, Ukraine.

50 m of black elastic, dust.

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Bread and Body

Performance in streaming, August 2020, Transmutacje, Belchatow, Poland.

​Red lipstick, lavash.

Lavash is a kind of bread. It is a symbol of a body. Each kiss becomes a touch, a wound, a hole… It is sacral and secular at the same moment.

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La Nada

Video performance, July 2020,

Hotel Dada. Argentina.

36th contribution of La Nada within the framework of the exhibition “La Nada. Una Declaration” in the collective project “Talking about nothing / Making nothing project”. 

Each guest artist submits a video of up to 1 minute with his/her personal interpretation of nothing.

© Yaryna Shumska 2025

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