Iza Szostak
Skaj Is the Limit
The 1990s in Poland saw the opening of borders, imagination, new TV channels, and the free market. The thoughts of Polish society were cut through with dreams of success as sharp as the Tiger Safety razor blades. Those who had a smart briefcase, a sable fur coat and a powerful car were seen to be successful; others had to make do with crystal chandeliers made of plastic, an artificial leather (in Polish called “skaj”) sofa with a matching footstool, and cut amphetamine.
Transformation is a transition stage, when the previous system no longer works and the new one has not yet been fully implemented. The body of society, the political body and the physical body are all being transformed. In Skaj Is the Limit, Iza Szostak queers the transformation archive. She has designed a non-normative reality, in which objects choose to exist outside the reproductive time of the heteronorm. The performance validates failure and weakness, taking the viewpoint of fake luxury goods – ever-present, living witnesses to history.
Skaj Is the Limit is the result of Iza Szostak’s most recent work on the project. The previous editions, called WannaBe#1 and WannaBe#2 were presented in 2018 in Prague and Warsaw. The performance was presented in 2019 at the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art as part of the program Choreography Residences carried out in collaboration with the Institute of Music and Dance.
