Alicja Wysocka and Vera Varlamova

Hide and Seek explores themes of resilience, imagination, and the reimagining of societal norms in a world of increasing precarity. Centered on a group of elderly women— war migrants from Eastern Europe—the film delves into their personal stories and collective creativity to envision alternative futures. Through intimate storytelling and performative rituals, the women articulate their hopes and fears, crafting a narrative that blends memory, trauma, and speculative utopias. The film examines themes of migration, aging, and queerness while challenging the constraints of traditional family structures and capitalist systems.
Inspired by theatrical pioneers like Tadeusz Kantor, Konstantin Stanislavski, and Bertolt Brecht, Hide and Seek combines visuals with a layered narrative that interweaves communal dreaming, shared rituals, and acts of creative resistance. The film invites audiences to reflect on collective survival and the power of imagination as a tool for crafting more inclusive and sustainable futures.

director: Alicja Wysocka
camerawoman: Vera Varlamova
edit: Alicja Wysocka & Vera Varlamova
cast: Liliia Chadaieva, Svitlana Gulevska, Oksana Plonska, Tamara Varlamova

Special thanks to: Hotel Nizza, Schirn Kunsthalle, Städel Museum, Cafe Hemdhoch, Städtische Bühnen Frankfurt am Main

The project is supported by the

City of Frankfurt - Department of International Affairs,
as one of the first collaborations within the framework of the Lviv-Frankfurt city partnership, as well as by

der Kulturamt der Stadt Frankfurt,
das Frauenreferat Frankfurt a. M.
das Hessisches Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Forschung, Kunst und Kultur

    Accessibility

  • duration: approx. 20 min

    language: Russian/Ukrainian with English subtitles

Credits

Alicja Wysocka /director, costume and set designer/ was born in Poland and works internationally. She graduated from the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main. She is an artist whose practice explores alternative economic models, commons, and collaborative, community-based forms of coexistence. Her work challenges conventional structures, proposing imaginative frameworks for collective living and shared prosperity. Through a multidisciplinary approach, she crafts projects that often function as collective therapeutic experiences, inviting audiences to critically reflect on societal norms and envision alternative futures.
Recently, she has focused on time-based media, creating video installations that blend storytelling, ritual, and speculative narratives. Her work frequently draws inspiration from theatre, opera, and diverse cultural practices, using collaboration as a central methodology to amplify marginalized voices and foster communal creativity.
Recent exhibitions include Kunstverein Wiesen (2023), Kunstverein Wiesbaden (2021), Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart (2021), Venice Biennale of Architecture (2021), Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (2020), Centre of Contemporary Art in Warsaw (2017).
She was an artist-in-residence at Jan van Eyck Academie in Netherlands (2022-2023), National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Seoul (2023), PARADISE AIR, Tokyo (2023), Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart (2020), Jatiwangi art Factory, Indonesia (2019). Selected film screenings include: Double Feature, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt am Main (2024), 143km Truck Screening, Ourweek Screening, Seoul (2023), Film POLSKA Spezial KUNST IM KINO, Berlin (2023), Almost Personal, Á Space, Hanoi (2023).
Exhibitions and Performances in Frankfurt am Main: Gentle Heterodoxy, fffredrich gallery (2018), Lamentations, Jo-anne Gallery (2021) Research on Unstable Ground, Studio Naxos (2021), ZDROJ, fffredrich gallery (2022)

Vera Varlamova /translator, co-producer, cinematographer/ born in Kiev in 2000, currently lives in Frankfurt am Main. In 2017 she entered the National I. K. Karpenko-Kary National University of Theater and Cinema, Kyiv, where she studied traditional Chekhov/Stanislavsky performance models both in theory and in practice, until this was discontinued due to the increasing instability in the region. Since 2019 she has been studying Fine Art at the Städelschule in Judith Hopf’s class, where she currently works with film, photography and performance. Her artistic practice is deeply connected to community practice and socio-political engagement. Since 2018 she has been involved in the neighborhood initiative Neue Nachbarschaft Moabit, and since 2020 in the Center for Culture and Recreation Strandbad Tegelseeee. In both initiatives, she offers art
summer art workshops for children and young people with and without a migration background.
Each summer program is project-oriented and ends with a public exhibition or film screening. Since 2019, it has been part of the foundationclasscollective, which campaigns against discrimination in the German art scene and academies. In 2021, foundationclasscollective presented an exhibition at the NGBK and in 2022 participated in Documenta 15. Performances in Frankfurt am Main: ‘The Dinner’ fffriedrich gallery, 2023; ‘Reading Hard’, Nizza Hotel, 2023; ‘Generous Enormous Hole’, Städelschule Rundgang 2023; ‘Cynthia 466’, Frankfurt Lab.

Pertners

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