M . A . K . 2025

Bianca Poláková invites the audience to witness and participate in an intimate and ancient ritual. She prepares and serves a traditional drink with milk and poppy seeds. In Slovakia, in fact, it is commonly sipped to more easily induce sleep; the recipe is known for its relaxing properties.
The artist conjures up the idea of blurred departure before sleep and places it in a real, tangible context.

She wears a nightgown, symbol of vulnerability but most importantly of transition. And indeed, the atmosphere is suspended between sleep and wakefulness; the resting area that awaits the viewer will be able to guide them to a predominantly sensory experience.

Through an act of hospitality, one aims to share a collective moment. The slowness of the ritual, the action of grinding repeated again and again, and finally the familiar domestic environment forcefully impose themselves on the acceleration of the urban landscape that lies only two floors below. Yet we seem to forget about it; this enclosed and protected, almost anachronistic frame reflects nothing of the neighborhood below. On the contrary, it generously offers a chance for a truce, immersion, and abandonment. One is thrown into a safe place in which to finally allow oneself a break and let loose, relinquishing control without any sense of guilt.

As in a self-induced and conscious sleep.