Performance 2026
Performance 2026
Tapir Studio (Klang)
Installation running permanently throughout the duration of the fair (Polar & Tropic) with live music on;
Thursday 8th October 19:45-20:30
‘Tidur Lambak’ is an immersive rest-based experience that reimagines the nostalgic communal sleeping arrangement of the Malaysian “balik kampung” tradition. Lined with colourful tikars and mosquito nets, the space becomes a temporary “kampung” room – a place to wander, settle, lie down, and rest.
Huuto (Helsinki)
Friday 9th October 19:00-20:00 (Polar & Tropic P6) + Running permanently throughout the fair.
Cleaning for You is a performance by Timo Tähkänen’s drag alter ego, Maimu Brushwood, who cleans the fair space while singing traditional Finnish lullabies.
All all all (Copenhagen)
Permanently in their booth (Polar & Tropic P1) and throughout the fair
All all all presents the collaborative work Travellers by artists Stine Victoria Pedersen and Eliyah Mesayer. The collaboration manifests through travellers; signs and tangible manifestations of migration, of entering new territory, of occupying or claiming space.
RocioSantaCruz (Barcelona)
Saturday 10th 18:00-19:00 (stand G15)
Drawing on Richard Sennett’s book Flesh and Stone, and on the lexicon proposed by Didi-Huberman in Gestures of Air and Stone, Enrique O. Romero and Judith Collell Poal set in motion a performative reading that shifts the habitual relationship between body, image, and space.
JAF- Jatiwangi Art Factory (Majalengka)
Saturday 10th 19:00-20:30 (Polar & Tropic stand P12)
Rampak Genteng emerges from the experimental practices of Jatiwangi residents who transform the terracotta rooftile into a sonic medium and a site of collective gathering.
Gelanggang Olah Rasa – GOR (Bandung)
Sunday 12:30-13:30 (Plaza Buïgas, General Program)
kuehsenyum is an ongoing performance and social exchange that began in 2011 with a simple proposition: a cake in exchange for a smile.
DAMDAM (Amsterdam)
Sunday 11th 18:00-20:00 (Radio zone, Polar & Tropic)
Lotería Lumbung is a participatory workshop and one-off public event that explores artistic harvesting as a collective practice of memory-making. Framed through a reimagined game of Lotería, the workshop invites participants to consider harvesting not as the collection of objects, but as the gathering of experiences, relationships, stories, and shared knowledge that exist somewhere between an archive and an artwork.
The performance programme brings together a selection of works developed by the artists and spaces participating in Polar and Tropic, translating the research and lines of inquiry that shape the curatorial programme into the performative realm.
Conceived as an extension of Polar and Tropic, the programme invites audiences to experience its ideas through live action and direct engagement with the artists. The performances become spaces for exchange and dialogue around key themes explored by the programme, including the tangible and intangible value of art, contemporary models of production, and the ways artistic practice can generate knowledge and foster community.
Through this programme, participants extend their projects beyond the exhibition format, creating shared experiences that enrich the dialogue between artists, spaces, and audiences while reinforcing performance as a tool for research, mediation, and collective reflection.
Tidur Lambak
Tidur Lambak
Tapir Studio (Klang)
The physical space will remain open throughout the duration of the fair, (Polar & Tropic) with the sound pieces presented at the following times:
Thursday 8th October 19:45-20:30
Friday 9th October 16:00-16:45
Sunday 11th October 16:30-17:30
Tidur Lambak is a participatory installation that reimagines the communal sleeping arrangements of balik kampung, the Malaysian homecoming tradition. Centred on a long communal pillow that twists and extends through the space, it is marked by silhouettes of heads, each representing a different member of an extended family: sister (kakak), father (abah), cousin (sepupu), older aunt (mak long), grandmother (nenek), and others. Participants occupy these positions, collectively navigating the shared structure. As each person moves, the pillow responds through a continuous series of tugs, pulls, and adjustments, altering the space for everyone else. The work explores family dynamics, interdependence, hierarchy, compromise, and the relational negotiations inherent in moving through a collective.
Cleaning for You
Cleaning for You
Huuto (Helsinki)
Friday 9th October 19:00-20:00 (Polar & Tropic P6)
**+**Running permanently throughout the fair.
Cleaning for You is a performance by Timo Tähkänen's drag alter ego, Maimu Brushwood, who cleans the fair space while singing traditional Finnish lullabies. The work brings together themes central to Tähkänen's artistic practice—identity and the body—with Galleria Huuto's TALKOOT theme. In Finland, talkoot refers to a group of people who voluntarily gather to work on a big task without getting paid. Historically used for farming (like harvesting) or building barns, today it is used for neighborhood clean-ups, gardening, or fixing local clubhouses. The host usually provides food and drinks as a thank you, making it a fun community social event.
Travellers
Travellers
All all all (Copenhagen)
Permanently in their booth (Polar & Tropic P1) and throughout the fair
All all all presents the collaborative work Travellers by artists Stine Victoria Pedersen and Eliyah Mesayer. The collaboration manifests through travellers; signs and tangible manifestations of migration, of entering new territory, of occupying or claiming space. Black national flags and white paper birds that initially fill the booth will migrate outwards during the days of the fair; they move from confinement into the common space, straddling and spreading. The works are not something to be bought or owned, but something that circulates through gestures.
The ongoing and durational performance is a way of questioning what kinds of economies and communities can exist outside monetary exchange.
Gestos de Carne y Piedra
Gestos de Carne y Piedra
RocioSantaCruz (Barcelona)
Saturday 10th 18:00-19:00 (stand G15)
Drawing on Richard Sennett’s book Flesh and Stone, and on the lexicon proposed by Didi-Huberman in Gestures of Air and Stone, Enrique O. Romero and Judith Collell Poal set in motion a performative reading that shifts the habitual relationship between body, image, and space. The proposal begins with a somatic understanding of the city: a territory that is not merely inhabited, but traversed, touched, looked at, and inscribed upon the flesh itself.Space does not appear as a neutral stage in which experiences simply take place, but as a structure that participates in the way bodies perceive, relate to one another, and acquire a particular awareness of themselves. The organization of the city can encourage distance and isolation—as happens with roads that separate communities or with architecture designed to facilitate movement without contact—but it can also generate spaces of encounter, exposure, and transformation.From this perspective, flesh and stone cease to function as separate materials and instead become a field of friction: the body as a space of inscription, and the city as a body that also produces, conditions, and transforms gestures. Writing thus becomes a bodily practice, an action that does not seek merely to describe the image, but to make it happen, activate it, and subject it to other forms of reading.The performative reading proposed by Enrique O. Romero and Judith Collell Poal thus seeks to place the contemporary lexicon through which we approach the image and its performativity under tension.To open a small whisper between the word that leaves the mouth and the stone. To let writing feel its way toward that which cannot be named, while the body encounters matter.Stone of the earth.
Stone of the city.
Rampak Gentang
Rampak Gentang
JAF- Jatiwangi Art Factory (Majalengka)
Saturday 10th 19:00-20:30 (Polar & Tropic stand P12)
Rampak Genteng emerges from the experimental practices of Jatiwangi residents who transform the terracotta rooftile into a sonic medium and a site of collective gathering. Originating from the small community called The People Clay, this practice expanded into a large-scale action in 2012, when more than a thousand residents sounded their tiles in unison; an event that has since been known as the Earth Year in Jatiwangi.This triennial celebration gave rise to what is now recognized as ceramic music: a new cultural form shaped not by formal tradition but by the rhythms of labor, the gestures of daily life, and the material agency of clay. Numerous terracotta-based music groups emerged, positioning the rooftile as an instrument, resonance, and a contemporary cultural vocabulary.For the people of Jatiwangi, Rampak Genteng has become more than a festival; it functions almost like an Eid Mubarak, a moment of returning home, reconnecting, renewing kinship, and celebrating the evolving life of the territory. During the event, participants collectively recite the Jatiwangi Oath, affirming their commitment to honor ancestral work, care for the land, and shape the future with creativity and ecological responsibility.At its peak, performers and audiences enter a state referred to as tranceramical; a shared, transcendent condition where the vibrations of rooftiles, the rhythms of bodies, and the energy of the crowd merge into a singular resonant field, forming what is described as the Sonic Land Community. The festival concludes with the Earth Prayer, reinforcing the deep, ongoing relationship between people, material, and place.Rampak Genteng reframes terracotta as an aesthetic, social, and spiritual medium, transforming the most ordinary material into a sonic landscape that reasserts Jatiwangi's cultural identity and collective imagination toward the future of the Terracotta City.
Kuehsenyum
Gelanggang Olah Rasa- GOR (Bandung)
Sunday 12:30-13:30 (Plaza Buïgas, General Program)
Kuehsenyum
kuehsenyum is an ongoing performance and social exchange that began in 2011 with a simple proposition: a cake in exchange for a smile.Instead of money, customers pay with a smile, captured by a custom-made payment machine that records their expression and prints it onto a thermal receipt. Each transaction becomes a small, tangible record of an otherwise fleeting gesture—a smile that pays for a cake, or a cake that pays for a smile.For SWAB 2026, kuehsenyum will serve kue rangi, a traditional Betawi cake made from sago and coconut, accompanied by palm sugar sauce. The performance will draw inspiration from the informal setups of kue rangi vendors found in Jakarta's streets and neighborhoods. The workspace will be positioned close to the ground, encouraging visitors to squat, sit, watch the preparation, or simply nongkrong—creating a more intimate and informal relationship between vendor and customer.Within the context of an art fair, kuehsenyum proposes an alternative form of exchange. In a space where value is constantly assigned, negotiated, bought, and sold, the project introduces another kind of currency: one based on attention, participation, generosity, and human connection.It imagines an economy of empathy—a temporary, non-monetary market where value is measured not by price, but by the encounter itself.The cakes will be served on paper liners inspired by the “Keep Calm and Carry On” poster, offering each participant a small gesture of emotional support. In a world defined by speed, anxiety, and uncertainty, the message becomes a simple reminder to persevere, stay resilient, and perhaps, for a moment, smile.
Lumbung Lotería
Lumnung Lotería
DAMDAM (Amsterdam)
Sunday 11th 18:00-20:00 (Radio zone, Polar & Tropic)
Lotería Lumbung is a participatory workshop and one-off public event that explores artistic harvesting as a collective practice of memory-making. Framed through a reimagined game of Lotería, the workshop invites participants to consider harvesting not as the collection of objects, but as the gathering of experiences, relationships, stories, and shared knowledge that exist somewhere between an archive and an artwork. Participation requires a €5 donation, with all proceeds contributing to a fundraiser that redistributes funds to trusted local initiatives in Indonesia.
The game transforms a familiar social format into an artistic methodology. Participants engage in rounds of Lotería while reflecting on collective memory, exchange, and the value of intangible forms of cultural production. Rather than simply playing for chance, the game becomes a process of harvesting itself—capturing conversations, encounters, and moments of solidarity as they unfold.Winners receive small-scale artworks generously donated by artists within damdam’s extended network, reinforcing the workshop’s emphasis on reciprocity and collective support.
The workshop reflects the ethos of damdam, a collective established in 2024 through the Lumbung Practice programme, which brings together participants from the de Appel Curatorial Programme, the Sandberg Institute, and Gudskul Collective Studies in Jakarta. Composed of numerous artist collectives, damdam works across disciplines to develop shared tools, build transnational connections, and cultivate practices of mutual aid.
