Body Hydraulics – Choreographies of Infrastructure

The Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw invites you to movement workshops accompanying the “From the Guts” section of the exhibition “City of Women”.

Have you ever wondered how buildings, economic systems, and urban infrastructure influence the way we move? How do they organize our visibility in space? During the workshops, we will juxtapose the soft and fluid aspects of our bodies with the hard, mechanical “hydraulics” of buildings and the city.

We will examine infrastructure not as a neutral backdrop, but as a system that imposes a pace on us, charts our paths, and determines access. At the exhibition itself, we will explore the works of selected artists. In their work, political and historical experiences intertwine with reflections on the hidden systems that sustain our lives, revealing the fragility and dependence of bodies on the urban machinery.

We will introduce the concept of “institutional choreography” and translate theory into practice.

We will consult technical plans—ventilation, sewage, plumbing, and urban infrastructure diagrams—and treat them as unconventional movement scores.

Through simple physical tasks, we will try to understand the logic of these systems.

We will look for places where architecture is unreliable, porous, and fragile. We will consider how we can “unseal” these imposed frameworks.

 

This is an excellent opportunity to use movement as a critical tool and to examine the museum space and the city from a completely new perspective, one that is close to the body.

How do economic systems, architecture, and infrastructure condition the relationships between movement, space, and time? How do they organize the visibility and circulation of bodies?

 

Please bring comfortable clothing and water to the workshop. The workshop is open to anyone interested in choreography and performance. No experience is required.

Facilitator’s biography: