Blessed be the witch_es is a performance act by Copenhagen-based artist Vala T. Foltyn in collaboration with curator Ginevra Ludovici. Organized by Lateral Roma and hosted at Fondazione Giuliani, the piece is a queer ritual that functions as an experiential portal for the community of the ghosts, witches, and vampires who have accompanied the artist’s practice for many years.
As a queer witch, Foltyn choreographs rituals as reenactments of difficult pasts in the search for queer futures. On this occasion, she is hosting a safer environment for the dead and inviting those who are alive to walk between the realms, opening and speaking with a specific archive located in a century-old villa in Kraków, Poland.
Vala T. Foltyn is a performance and installation artist, and founder of Lamella the house of queer arts in Poland. She graduated from Shahar Dor’s Artness – Home and School for Movement (Israel) and Performers House (Denmark). She earned her Master’s degree in Cultural Anthropology at Jagiellonian University in Kraków, and graduated with a Master of Fine Arts in Artistic Research at Malmö Art Academy. For several years she researched Anna Halprin’s legacy, which was presented at Copenhagen Contemporary| Danshallerne in 2020. She recently performed and exhibited her work at Musik Installationen Festival in Nuremberg, Tallinn Art Hall, Bergen Assembly, and the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw. In 2022, she was artist in residence at the Art Hub Copenhagen and currently is a resident at the Danish Institute in Rome.