"CRYING / TRYING" | video installation | Łódź Many Cultures Festival

Art, Łódź Many Cultures Festival. A video installation and performance created especially for the festival by Daniel Kotowski, a Deaf Polish artist working at the intersection of performance and video, who will represent Poland at the Venice Biennale of Art in 2026. The starting point is the figure of Stefan Napierski, a Łódź poet and critic of Jewish origin, husband of Irena Tuwim, whose homosexuality remained unspoken for years. Kotowski reads his poetry through the theme of crying as a gesture between powerlessness and action, filming the work in the disused swimming pool of Łódź's YMCA. The event combines the history of Jewish Łódź, queer memory, and Deaf culture experience. The pool is not adapted for people with mobility disabilities. The full festival program day by day: Festiwal Łódź Wielu Kultur on Dziś w Łodzi.