work in progress

Simona Kasprowicz’s “Shekhinah in Labor” has been selected for “Rotating Gallery: Boundary Questions”, the 2026 contemporary art programme at POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews. The Rotating Gallery presents works responding to social divisions, unequal visibility and the boundaries that shape participation in public narratives. Each selected project will receive an individual presentation in the museum’s gallery space. “Shekhinah in Labor” begins with the artist’s experience of a space divided between women and men at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. Unable to locate herself fully on either side, Kasprowicz turns towards the Shekhinah—the divine presence associated in Jewish mystical thought with the material world, exile and the feminine dimension of divinity. The title connects three meanings of labor: work, effort and childbirth. Developed as an intermedia installation activated through a lecture-performance, the project draws on the kabbalistic figures of shevirat ha-kelim, kelipot and hester panim to consider fragmentation, concealment and the possibility of presence. Throughout the work, Kasprowicz’s face moves between painting, print, sculptural object and digitally generated image. The artist stages a pregnancy with her own multiplied likeness, making the self simultaneously the body that carries, the image being carried and the material that must eventually be expelled. She describes this interruption as autoabortion—a gesture connected with bodily autonomy and with transition understood as the ongoing alignment of the body, its image and its social presence with one’s own recognition. The project asks who is permitted to occupy a given side, enter a community and become visible without first accepting a category imposed from outside. Here, labor names the work required to make occupying space possible. “Rotating Gallery: Boundary Questions” will run at POLIN Museum from 16 July to 30 November 2026. “Shekhinah in Labor” will be the third presentation in the programme. Exact dates will be announced separately.

Presented at 30Formiche as part of HPFF26, Fucking with Marilyn was recognised within one of Italy’s distinctive independent festivals dedicated to kinky, queer, post-porn and experimental cinema. The festival, founded in Rome in 2017, describes its programme as a space for destabilising conventional expectations around bodies, sexuality, obscenity and desire. The award acknowledges the film’s artistic approach to sexuality, myth, labour and self-representation, as well as its formal position between documentary, performance and queer re-imagining. In Fucking with Marilyn, the figure of Marilyn Monroe becomes a site of projection, desire and violence — but also a space for reclaiming the image through a trans, performative and deeply personal perspective. Kasprowicz was also invited to serve as a jury member for the Short Film Competition at this year’s edition of the festival, contributing to the recognition of new short-form works in the field of independent queer, post-porn and experimental cinema.

In February 2026, Malga Kubiak’s feature-length film FETISH had its world premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), selected for the Cinema Regained programme. FETISH is described as an autobiography in defence of aesthetics that are “in your face” and confrontational—set against bourgeois notions of good taste and restraint, and moving through punk / camp / trash registers: tacky, cheesy, cheap, even treacly. The film is framed as an “epic ego trip” that turns one person’s experience into a story of many, without softening its edges or translating its stance into polite cinema. The film’s image economy is also part of its position: FETISH explicitly draws on VHS and its consumer-grade texture—static SD “lyricism”—treated as a working format rather than a retro filter. IFFR’s credits list Simona Kasprowicz in the principal cast and for Editing, with an additional credit in Cinematography (alongside Malga Kubiak, Au Matt, and Daria Infanti). IFFR listing (selected details): FETISH — Malga Kubiak | 2026 | 132’ | World premiere | Cinema Regained (IFFR 2026)