STRETCHED THIN
Performance by Dominik Styk, Richard L. Kramár, Ursula Sereghy
5 September 2026,
6:00 PM
Tęcza Puppet Theatre
ul. Waryńskiego 2, Słupsk
Skin makes us believe that our bodies have clear boundaries. I end here, you begin there. But with every breath, something passes between us. You inhale me, I inhale you. We never breathe alone.
The starting point for Dominik Styk’s performance Stretched Thin is latex – a material that resembles human skin, reacting to touch, pressure, stretching and rupture. The artist follows the history of the balloon: from animal bladders once used in games and rituals, through the Slovak folktale of urine blader named Mechúrik Koščúrik, to contemporary latex production and online subcultures centred around the fetish of inflation and bursting. Here, the balloon becomes skin without a body, a container for breath and a figure of a body whose boundaries can be shifted, deformed and put to the test.
Stretched Thin continues the performance cycle Styk began with Pissed Prophet – a performance presented in December 2025 at the Bodies Craving To Believe festival in Prague – where the starting points were the bladder, urine and bodily fluids. This time, the focus shifts towards skin, touch and breath – which constantly circulates between the inside and outside of the body. Slovak artist Richard L. Kramár will appear on stage, while the performance will also take the form of an installation incorporating objects and set design created by Styk. Puppet theatre, documentary research, bodily humour and grotesque meet the music of Ursula Sereghy and video elements, including a video performance by Mikołaj Prynkiewicz, an actor at Tęcza Puppet Theatre.
Stretched Thin was developed during Dominik Styk’s residency at BGSW in connection with the International Leather Art Exhibition. The performance expands on themes explored in the exhibition chapter “Metabolism and Fetish”, which approaches skin through its biological, cultural and interspecies entanglements – from the ethical weight of animal-derived matter and the circulation of substances between organisms to fetish, ritual and relationships formed with non-human forms of life. This section of the exhibition also features Styk’s sculpture In the Bag It Is Dark.
Dominik Styk’s residency is supported by the International Visegrad Fund.
Dominik Styk (b. 1996 in Banská Bystrica) is a Slovak artist working across sculpture, installation and performance. He studied scenography for alternative and puppet theatre at the Theatre Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague (DAMU), and Time-Based Media at the Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg. He also took part in academic exchanges at the Academy of Fine Arts Nuremberg and the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. In his practice, he works with textiles, wearable objects and found materials. He is interested in relationships between the body and its surroundings, processes of identity formation, and the boundaries between illusion, perception and scenography. His works have been presented at, among others, Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst in Bremen, Kunstverein Schwerin, Kunstforum Rottweil, Prague City Gallery and the Zlín Salon of Young Artists. He lives and works in Hamburg.
Credits:
Concept and set design: Dominik Styk
Realisation and Performance: Richard L. Kramár
Music: Ursula Sereghy
Video performance: Mikołaj Prynkiewicz
Balloons: Balloon Chair
Curator: Tomek Pawłowski-Jarmołajew
Production: Aleksander Oświt, Robert Ochociński, Sebastian Moczulski / Tęcza Puppet
Theatre
Co-organiser: Tęcza Puppet Theatre in Słupsk
Duration: approx. 60 min
Language: English with Polish subtitles
Audience information: The performance contains sexual content and loud sounds, including the sound of balloons bursting.
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