Huge Sillytoe performing in Warsaw
20.06 (Saturday), 19:00. We are extremely pleased to invite you to the performance by Huge Sillytoe, the special guest of Malatorium Artspace. The event provides a unique chance to experience their extraordinary art in Warsaw for the first time ever in Poland! The performance will result from a short- term residency facilitated by Malatorium.
Introducing the artist:
Huge Sillytoe is a large and daft toe. They are also a transdisciplinary artist whose work has been labelled by different people in different moments as performance, live art, experimental theatre, community theatre, relational art, artivism, eco-art, sound art, textile art, music, poetry, installation, sculpture, art-as-research… The list grows on – like feelings, bacteria, the winding of rope, lightning bolts across the sky, developing bones – all reaching towards places unknown. Huge proposes these diverse artworks as a constellation of explorations of their aesthetic-political philosophy of Spoonbroccolism (also known as pragmatic-absurdo-anarchism), as explored in their manifes-toe below.
photo credits: @myymala2 (@kamila_sladowska ), Johannesburg Lightning Research Laboratory (@zivanaimatangi ), @folie.culture (Mali Mowcka),
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entry: free of charge/ voluntary donation
ICA invites artists, performers, teachers and creatives to a unique interdisciplinary creative experience with international transdisciplinary artist Huge Sillytoe (Dr. Hugh Sillitoe).
Explore experimental theatre, movement, eco-art, improvisation and social commentary through collaborative and imaginative exercises.
Whether you're involved in visual art, installation work, spoken word, dance or theatre this creative lab welcomes you.
See flyer for details. Registration is required.
Contact: 227-2110, [email protected]
Meet our #NGP2026 Participant ✨
We’re excited to introduce Huge Sillytoe (aka Dr Hugh Sillitoe), joining us from UK.
📖 Bio: Huge Sillytoe (AKA Dr Hugh Sillitoe) is a transdisciplinary artist and researcher whose work has been labelled by different people in different moments as performance/live art, experimental theatre, relational art, artivism, eco-art, sound art, textile art, music, poetry, and art-as-research.
🎭 Role: NGP Facilitator
As part of Next Generation Residency 2026, Hugh will lead participants from Mongolia and abroad to explore the theme: “The Role of Theatre for Early Years and Climate Change.”
🌍 This residency is part of the Wanderlust in Mongolia Festival, a nomadic theatre journey across Orkhon and Bulgan provinces, bringing live performances to children and communities for the very first time.
✨
#NGP2026 #WanderlustFestival #AssitejMongolia #TheatreForYoungAudiences ClimateChangeThroughArt
Huge Sillytoe (also known academically as Dr. Hugh Sillitoe) is a large, daft toe. They are also a socially-engaged transdisciplinary artist from Durham, UK working internationally across performance, video, installation, sound, textile art, masks/puppetry, and relational art.
Their work often investigates the socio-political impacts of unexpected and absurd interventions across different cultural contexts.
Interactive and unusual moments of play, and embodied reflection upon the significance of playfulness to the (re)construction of our identities, are central components of their practice.
Huge creates participatory performances and installs playscapes in both public and institutional spaces often making use of masks, costumes, toys, sound instruments, and interactive sculptures built from found and recycled fabrics.
In this way, they seek to open the pathway to a freer, fairer, and softer world through textural-corporal-textile-artworks that playfully defy normative expectations.
Meanwhile, they regularly assist others to trample this trail further via facilitating community programs and
workshops where new practices of emancipatory performance are nurtured collectively.
@hugesillytoe@kiberaartsdistrict@hofgallerykibera
#kiberaartsdistrict #beyondgarment #bridgingspaces #kijanaartistresidency
Stroke Data
An experimental performance exploring lightning, tenderness, and the many ways we try to stay afloat.
Farewell show of my artist-in-lab postdoctoral residency with Wits School of Arts and Johannesburg Lightning Research Laboratory.
Tuesday 7 October 2025, 13.00 - 14.00, Wits Theatre Amphitheatre Stage, Free Entry
On average, lightning strikes fifteen times per square kilometre per year in Johannesburg. This is an example of ‘stroke data’ - that is data concerning strokes of lightning ⚡️. Upon hearing this term repeatedly during their position as postdoctoral artist in residence within Johannesburg Lightning Research Laboratory, Huge Sillytoe (also known as Dr. Hugh Sillitoe) began to consider parallel forms of ‘stroke data’ regarding other types of strokes such as the stroke of a caressing hand, swimming strokes, lack of blood supply to the brain, and, of course, the brushstrokes of an artist.
Through fifteen rapid happenings in the space of an hour, echoing the average of fifteen strokes of lightning per square kilometre per year in Johannesburg, this participatory performance will explore a multiplicity of forms of stroke - from lightning to love to the twelve strokes of a dusty grandfather clock at midnight - as interlaced expressions of ever-moving and ultimately inexplicable energy. This builds on Huge Sillytoe’s interdisciplinary research and artistic practice spanning more than a decade concerning the inexplicable and the absurd across the arts, social sciences, and now natural sciences and engineering too.
The performance will also feature a mechanical stroking hand combining 3D printed parts with the wooden fingertips of an artist’s mannequin produced in collaboration with the biomedical lab within Wits School of Electrical Engineering. Special thanks are due to Dr. Abdul-Khaaliq Mohamed and his talented student Ioanna Klapsinos for their assistance with this process.
@hugesillytoe performance on a sewing machine for @lavo_hands on KIJANA Street Style runway
#beyondgarment #kiberaartsdistrict #bridgingspaces #performingarts
For all those who have wondered what an onion might look like in a thong…
Full happening ‘Each teardrop has its own eyes; every onion must fight the good fight’ featuring onions, thongs, giant masks, and resistance songs from across the universe coming as part of our collective exhibition opening this Saturday at @hofgallerykibera / @kiberaartsdistrict / @kijana_cc
🧅🧅🧅🧅🧅🧅🧅
What can I say, I’ve always been a singer…
Late night in the studio where I’m currently working on new textile and performance works in residence with @kijana_cc , @kiberaartsdistrict , and @hofgallerykibera in Nairobi, alongside four inspirational artists/designers from Kenya and Tanzania - @lavo_hands , @mtu_loko , @miss_wambale , and @paulaangar
More s(p)oon…
From Cloth to Character Workshop
Sat 20.9 | 📍Kibera Arts District
Part of the international residency Bridging Spaces.
🎭Join Huge Sillytoe 🇬🇧, a playful socially-engaged artist from the UK, in an exploration of how fabric becomes identity. Through performance and storytelling, you’ll transform simple cloth into living characters.
@hugesillytoe@art_h.auz
👉 Register now via the link in @kijana_cc bio!
#Bridgingspaces #KiberaArtsDistrict #PerformanceArt #TextileArt #FabricIdentity #ArtWorkshop #InternationalResidency #HugeSillytoe #CreativeCommunity #NairobiArts
¡Medellín! ¡Johannesburgo! Arte… ¿Ciencia?
Está semana el 21 y 22 de agosto con @juancamilolm1 estamos coordinando un encuentro en la Universidad de Antioquia de charlas e intervenciones explorando diferentes prácticas artísticas-científicas incluyendo presentaciones de ilustradores, psicólogos, músicos, biólogos, activistas, teóricos, artistas digitales, y artistas de teatro y performance sobre las implicaciones estéticas, científicas, y políticas de combinar distintas prácticas de arte y ciencia en diferentes contextos del sur global.
El evento va a suceder en paralelo con otro encuentro sucediendo durante los mismos días en la Universidad de Johannesburgo y la Universidad de Witwatersrand en Sudáfrica. A través de conversaciones compartidas entre los dos encuentros, esperamos comenzar a tejer una nueva red de arte-ciencia entre Colombia y Sudáfrica y más ampliamente entre los continentes de Latinoamérica y África.
¡Evento abierto y gratuito para cualquier persona interesada! ¡Nos vemos allí!
⚡Projecto hecho como parte de mi trabajo como artista en residencia de Johannesburg Lightning Research Laboratory and Wits School of Art⚡
