MACH Festival Bratislava

MACH 2025 – The 1st edition of the festival of performative art will be presented to the audience on 29 March 2025 at the Svetlík Atelier in Nová Cvernovka.

The theme: MIZERIA

Programme:

16:30 – 18:00 Discussion in Svetlik: Performative art and mental health: contexts and fragilities, moderated by Michaela Kučová

19:00 Performative evening in Svetlik

Featuring:

ZUZANA ŽABKOVÁ

VIKTÓRIA REVICKÁ

FILIP STREĎANSKÝ

TEMPORARY COLLECTIVE

The MACH Festival was created as a tribute to the work and ideals of the artist and performer Katarína Morháčová (1986 – 2018), who performs under the pseudonym Kata Mach. Her work has continuously dealt with themes of vulnerability, imperfection, awkwardness, desire, subjectivity and mental health, and their wider socio-political connotations. The first edition of the festival is dedicated to the theme of MISERY, both as an individual lived experience and as a framework for contemporary socio-political reality.

Misery is commonly understood as a state of great poverty, destitution or hardship, often associated with feelings of disappointment, sadness and hopelessness. Misery can be seen as a period of adverse material or psychological conditions. Although it sounds paradoxical, misery can also be emancipatory. It is often adverse conditions or hardships that force individuals or communities to reassess their functioning, to become aware of injustice, to find motivation for change.

Misery can lead to personal or collective liberation, whether social, economic or cultural. Examples include the history of various emancipatory movements – for example, the struggle for workers’ rights, women’s emancipation, or the civil rights movement. Misery becomes the impetus for awareness of rights and freedom, for the struggle for dignity and a better life.

As part of the MACH 2025 festival, we approached authors who respond to the theme with their performative works. The selection of authorship was done in two ways – open call selection and direct approach.

ZUZANA ŽABKOVÁ connects performance, video and installation as an artist, dancer and choreographer. Her work is strongly autonomous and at the same time freely crosses disciplines. She draws on a range of historical and contemporary repertoires from literature, classical music to film and choreography, which she integrates into a coherent artistic practice. She works with what the position of the spectator means and plays with directness, immediacy, vulnerability and exposure to the relationship with the other and insists between live event and documentation. Žabková will be performing a re-enactment performance of Katy Mach’s Do You Like Me?

VIKTÓRIA REVICKÁ works predominantly with performativity, but also works with original text, video, food, fermentation and plants. She connects to the vulnerability of the living and inanimate environment and communicates it to us through visual metaphors and her own vocabulary. Her approach to making reflects an interest in relating to her surroundings, ecology, intuition, fermentation processes, and slowing down. She is a graduate of the Department of Intermedia at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava.

FILIP STREĎANSKÝ is a visual artist and teacher. He studied media and communication studies with a focus on digital games. He is currently working as a high school teacher and studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava in the Intermedia studio. His work deals with themes of masculinity, machismo and problematic online echo-chambers, as well as issues of late capitalism. He treats these themes using absurdist humour and caricature, often through drawing, objects and performance. His works reflect on internet culture and its impact on society. At MACH, he will be performing his performance LEG YAY.

TODAY COLLECTIVE is a non-hierarchical theatre cooperative with a fluid membership. Since its inception in 2018, it has staged 4 productions and performances in which it addresses socio-political issues and explores forms of interaction with the audience. At the MACH festival, he will be presenting his performance Moneyfest.

Location: New Cvernovka, Račianska 78, 831 02 Bratislava
Date: 29.03.2025 – 30.03.2025
Time: from 16:30
Admission free. From 16:00 – 30:00, from 10:00 to 30:00.

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