HONORING THE RAWA AND BRYNICA RIVERS

2025, happening

Ecofeminism and Performance Art workshop, Mysłowice, PL

We do not wish to build a community based on purity.

We wish to build one based on shared vulnerability – on mud, on moisture, on what is slippery, murky, impure, and alive.

For it is in this – in flow, transformation, and connection – that true relation is born.

Let our bodies remember they are water.

Rawa, Brynica – we recognize you.

Let our covenant be fluid, open, dispersed – like your currents.

Let it be porous like your banks, spilling beyond what is allowed, predictable, or legal.

Excerpt from Ritual of Honoring and Healing the Rivers Rawa and Brynica text read during the happening

This project emerged from a workshop I facilitated on ecofeminist performance art, grounded in the specific context of Upper Silesia's Rawa and Brynica rivers. Together with Academy of Fine Arts Katowice students, we created a public happening for the Rawa River Festival that honored these waterways through collective ritual. Drawing from workshop conversations and my research into the rivers' ecological and cultural significance, I authored a text that was performed publicly alongside other ceremonial gestures we developed together. Our intention was to make visible the often-overlooked river ecosystem and recognize water as a living presence deserving respect and gratitude.