This work engages with eroticism, longing, pleasure, and touch. It was first performed at the Foksal Foundation, between two floors. On the first floor samples of Urszula Sipińska’s romantic ballad Nim Zakwitnie Tysiąc Róż (Until a Thousand Roses Bloom, 1971) are delivered in various loops, for example the lyrics “this is not about silly fabrics or ribbons”. A billowing red fabric, a prop for drag performances, brings to the foreground sensuality and reflects on the ephemerality of queer gestures and safe spaces for queer pleasure. On the second floor, a choreography composed of moments and gestures of erotic charge and pleasure, that might recall situations alternately between friends, lovers, strangers. The set brings to attention topographies of desire and a reminder that the site –Foksal Gallery– takes its name from the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, a historically significant site for queer cruising. By gathering these moments, the potential of longing and eroticism in queer relationality is reflected upon. Cruising is taken as a mode of close attention to the modulations and gestures of longing, through repetition and temporal suspension. What is being cruised here is desire and eroticism itself.

CREDITS

Choreography
Alex Baczyński-Jenkins

In collaboration with and performed by
Aaa Biczysko, Ewa Dziarnowska, Joseph Funnel, Billy Mogan, Filipka Rutkowska, Rafał Pierzyński, Katarzyna Szugajew

Set concept
Alex Baczyński-Jenkins

Set realisation
Małgorzata Nawrocka (Foksal Gallery Foundation), Anna Posch (Galeria Municipal do Porto)

Live sound
Krzysztof Baginski

Sound research
Filip Lech, DUNNO Recordings

Originally commissioned and produced by Foksal Gallery Foundation, Warsaw, 2018

Duration
3 hrs

A production by
ABJ Studio

Previous presentations include
Foksal Gallery Foundation, Warsaw (2018); Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland, as part of Alex Baczyński-Jenkins solo exhibition Such Feeling (2019). Galeria Municipal do Porto, Portugal (2025)