Jagoda Kwiatkowska: Warm Words (sound performance)

Polish artist Jagoda Kwiatkowska prepared an immersive ASMR-style sound performance during her residency at A4 as part of the Visegrad Artists Residency Programme, which promotes an emotional processing of the response to the climate crisis. Visitors are invited to linger and listen to a multi-channel soundscape created from whispering voices, subtle textures and transformed natural sounds, reflecting environmental changes – drought, flooding, changing seasons and disappearing ecosystems. The performance uses ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response) techniques known to calm the nervous system and reduce stress levels. This creates a meditative, grounding experience that helps participants understand emotions such as ecological anxiety, fear, sadness and helplessness, while promoting personal reflection and a sense of responsibility.
The Warm Words performance balances between a therapeutic experience and basic alarm, offering a space for inner calm and critical reflection. It is a moment of caring – and a signal that something is changing. The work particularly focuses on the devastating floods that hit our region in 2024, amplifying the experience of the overwhelming power of water and the profound sense of loss it brings with it. The performance incorporates sensory triggers that can evoke intense emotional or physical reactions. If you are sensitive to trauma-related stimuli, we urge caution.

Jagoda Kwiatkowska is an interdisciplinary artist from Warsaw, working with different media. She explores mental health, identity and the post-traumatic spaces we inhabit, shaped by historical trauma, responding to social and individual crises – whether they stem from climate change, war or personal struggle. She is a graduate of the Spatial Activities Studio of Mirosław Balka (2018) and the Audiovisual Studio of Grzegorz Kowalski (2016) at the Faculty of Media Art, Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, and the Knowledge of Culture at the University of Warsaw (2016). Her practice is based on performance, sound and visual art with a strong focus on sensory engagement. She strives to create works that offer solace while provoking deeper introspection about how we as individuals and communities can heal and redefine our stories in response to the challenges of the world. Since 2018, she has collaborated with Julia Golachowska and Anna Shimomura as part of the feminist art group Kolektyw Łaski (Grace Collective). Their work explores themes of history, memory, gender, feminism, ecology, and identity. In their first project, The New Patriotic Songbook, they rewrote patriotic song lyrics and replaced misogynistic, racist, classist, and pro-war passages with feminist, pacifist, inclusive, and community-empowering messages.

Supported by the Visegrad Fund and the Slovak Arts Council.