Is there a discourse of opposition between what is beautiful and ugly, born from knowledge and power, between what is feminine and masculine; in a place, where all the mountains are feminine, thirteen Santa Clauses visit children in December and people use the oldest language in this part of the globe? The lecture will be the review of the most interesting performative Icelandic projects and a comparative analysis conducted on the example of two generations of performers – the generation of the fifties, whose works are nature oriented, although their interest and respect towards the elements is manifested through new media; and the generation of performers active since the nineties, who, using a punk form, focus on culture as a form of aggression and repression. The summary will be the attempt to answer the question, whether based on analysing the projects we can talk about Icelandic performance as a separate and characteristic national genre in statu nascendi.

Małgorzata Dancewicz – a performative artist, Ph.D. student of UWr, co-founder of the IN IRE group, curator of the INTERMEDIALE Festival