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BIO

MONIKA POPIEL

THEATRE DIRECTOR

SOMATIC & MULTISENSORY ARTIST

ELECTRONIC DESIGNER & PROGRAMMER

Graduate of Directing Department

Aleksander Zelwerowicz National Academy of Dramatic Art in Warsaw, Poland

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Master of Science in Mathematics

Faculty of Applied Physics and Mathematics

Technical University of Gdańsk, Poland

Monika Popiel is an interdisciplinary artist working at the intersection of somatic practice, performance, textile art, and custom electronic systems.

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Her/their practice combines: 

  • ​documentary, field-based, and body-based research,

  • deep somatic work and choreography,

  • embodied, body-led textile-making practices and wearable textile interfaces,

  • creative coding and prototyping of embedded electronic systems,

  • a community-oriented, relational approach.
     

She/They create interactive encounter spaces where bodies and senses act and flow as both material and tool. Her/their practice investigates how touch, interoception, and movement operate as research tools and as infrastructures for relation. It explores dynamic relationships between bodies, memory, imagination, and multisensory, tangible experiences of the world, engaging questions of empathy, somatic attunement and resonance, uncertainty, and possibilities for collective action.

 

Through wearable technologies and dynamic audio algorithms integrated into textiles, she approaches the body as a dynamic habitat shaped by memory, fantasy, affect, and social imprinting.
 

Central to her/their practice are:​

  • touch as a journey of becoming-with — understood not only as physical contact but as a movement towards the other
     

  • interoception as a practice of engaging uncertainty and co-presence 

 

  • skin as both a boundary and an interface, becoming a dynamic and infinite territory of negotiation

 

  • space as a dynamic collective body (holobiont, ecosystem), emerging from accidental encounters

 

  • identity as a dynamic processes of accidental encounters, collision and exchanges, where "I" transitions fluidly between "we" and "they," and where "I" evolves into a verb. 

CV >>

PROJECTS:

 

2025: 

  • Co-autor (collective collaboration with Paweł Świerczek) of Stimpathy. To Be Free(k) in Connection / Ballhaus Ost, Stiftung Berliner Leben, Berlin, Germany 

  • Co-autor (collective collaboration with Paweł Świerczek) of Stimpathy / Fresh A.I.R, Urban Nation, Stiftung Berliner Leben, Berlin, Germany 

  • Co-author and co-graphic/haptic designer of publication Współmyślenia based on research made during „Współmyślenia” artistic research program / NN6T, Warsaw, Poland 

 

2024:

  • Co-author (collective collaboration with Agata Skrzypek) of an interdisciplinary process Kochanieńka.Xterminate / process started in Wanda Siemaszkowa Theatre, Rzeszów, Poland (process and research is still continued in different places)

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2022:

  • Author of Eden Open Source (documentary and research project, interactive multisensory installation) / The Artistic Scholarship of The Capital City of Warsaw / Warsaw, Poland

 

2021:

  • Director of Not yet (Jeszcze się nie stało) stage performance / Jan Kochanowski Theatre, Opole, Poland

 

2020:

  • Performer , researcher, electronics and algorithm designer in Maurycy Ignaczewski work in progress performance directed by Marek Idzikowski / Sopot Non-Fiction Residency, Sopot, Poland

  • Member of Flying Cursors (Latające Kursory) music group (with Anna Kamińska, Paweł Świerczek, and Rabbit on the Moon (Michał Wajdzik), co-author of Flying Cursors EP / Scena Robocza, Poznań, Poland 

  • Co-author (collective cooperation with Anna Kamińska, Paweł Świerczek, and Rabbit on the Moon (Michał Wajdzik) of Everything will change (Wszystko się zmieni) stage performance / Scena Robocza, Poznań, Poland

 

2019:

  • Author of N/A - Neighbour/Avatar community project / Scena Robocza, Poznań, Poland

  • Author of multisensory Shared Sounds (Wspólne Dźwięki) site-specific interactive installation / Scena Robocza, Poznań, Poland

 

2018:

  • Algorithms designer and director of Roja stage performance and an interactive installation /  Powszechny Theater, Warsaw, Poland

  • Researcher, script co-writer and performer in Dramaturgies of the 'Other' process and performance led by Martha Bouziouri / Atlas of Planetary Violence at Biennale Warszawa / Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, Poland

 

 

SCHOLARSHIPS, RESIDENCIES, ART PROGRAMS, FESTIVALS, EXHIBITIONS, PERFORMANCES, AWARDS:

 

2025:

  • Stimpathy. To Be Free(k) in Connection / Ballhaus Ost, Berlin, Germany 

  • Stimpathy / exhibition “I AM FLUX: The Freedom of Being and the Possibilities of Becoming” / Urban Nation Museum, Berlin, Germany​

  • Fresh A.I.R. art residency and scholarship / Urban Nation, Stiftung Berliner Leben, Berlin, Germany 

  • Eden Open Source / performance & installation /  4th Non-fiction Theatre Festival „Atypowo” (IV Festiwal Teatr na Faktach „Atypowo”), Instytut im. Jerzego Grotowskiego, Wrocław, Poland 

  • Collective Stimming for Diverse Bodyminds / workshop and space for collective exploration / ImPulsTanz Festival, Vienna, Austria 

  • Stimtease / workshop and space for collective exploration / Stretch Festival, Berlin, Germany

  • Script (text by Agata Skrzypek) of Kochanieńka.Xterminate based on Kochanieńka.Xterminate interdisciplinary process / semifinalist for the Gdynia Dramatic Award / Gdynia, Poland
     

2024:

  • „Współmyślenia” artistic research program / Warsaw Observatory of Culture, University  of Warsaw, Museum of Modern Art , Warsaw, Poland

  • Kochanieńka.Xterminate - performative reading / 3rd Festival of Masterpieces (3. Festiwal Arcydzieł) / Wanda Siemaszkowa Theatre, Rzeszów, Poland

  • New Dramaturgy Stage (Scena Nowej Dramaturgii) art residency / Wanda Siemaszkowa Theatre, Rzeszów, Poland

  • Eden Open Source / exhibition„Un-safe space” / Wind0wlicker, Warsaw, Poland 

  • Eden Open Source / Młyn Open Space festival / Przecław 3D, Szczecin, Poland
     

2023:

  • IKI Foundation prize for the Eden Open Source installation in the 3rd Edition of the New Situations (Nowe Sytuacje) Art Competition "Captures,"("Uchwycenia") organized by the IKI Foundation / Warsaw, Poland

  • Eden Open Source / exhibition „Captures” („Uchwycenia”) / IKI Foundation, Warsaw, Poland

  • Eden Open Source / festival „Wigrosfera”, Suwałki, Poland

  • Eden Open Source / Teatr Ochoty, Warsaw, Poland

  • Eden Open Source / exhibition „Rzeczy małej wagi” / Tymczasem Gallery , Wrocław, Poland

  • Eden Open Source / Teatr Ochoty, Warsaw, Poland

 

2022:

  • The Artistic Scholarship of The Capital City of Warsaw / Warsaw, Poland 

 

2021:

  • Not yet / „New Epiphanies” ("Nowe Epifanie") Festival / (on-line edition) Warsaw, Poland

  • Not yet/ Jan Kochanowski Theatre, Opole, Poland

  • Modelatornia art residency / Jan Kochanowski Theater, Opole, Poland

 

2020:

  • Maurycy Ignaczewski - work in progress / Cameral Stage of Wybrzeże Theatre, Sopot, Poland

  • Sopot Non-Fiction art residency /Sopot, Poland 

  • „Laboratory of New Epiphanies” (Laboratorium Nowych Epifanii) art residency / Warsaw, Poland; Masurian Lake District, Poland

  • Performative concert of Flying Cursors / Scena Robocza, Poznań, Poland

  • Everything will change / Scena Robocza, Poznań, Poland

  • Scena Robocza Residency / Poznań, Poland 
     

2019:

  • N/A - Neighbor/Avatar / performative interventions in public spaces / Poznań, Poland 

  • documentation and objects from N/A - Neighbor/Avatar / show "Neighbourhood - Intimacy Boundaries - Queer deconstruction” / Scena Robocza, Poznań, Poland

  • "Sąsiedztwo: Granice Bliskości - Queerowy Demontaż” queer art program / Scena Robocza, Poznań, Poland

 

2018:

  • Speaker at the "New Technologies, New Generation" panel / art and technology conference Stages of Tomorrow 2018 (Scena Jutra 2018) / Warsaw, Poland 

  • Roja / 8th Young Directing Forum (8. Forum Młodej Reżyserii), Cracow, Poland

  • Roja / The Art and Society Festival Happy City / Powszechny Theater, Warsaw, Poland

  • Dramaturgies of the 'Other' / The Atlas of Planetary Violence at Biennale Warszawa / Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, Poland

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