f***ball

“F***ball” is a phantom pas de deux with my former downstairs neighbor, inspired by the manifesto of Didier Drogba. It is a queer imaginary world of hooligans, using childhood dreams. Here, kicking a ball together becomes an attempt to rewrite the rules of the game, and to search for a different kind of community — one that is not based on national feelings, but on temporary alliances and accidental meetings. On the left side of the chest, instead of an eagle, there is a nipple, and under it a hidden heart. We want to open our chests — out of love — and never again allow them to be opened by strangers in the name of an eagle that flew away a long time ago.

​

In 2005, the men’s national team of Ivory Coast qualified for the World Cup for the first time in history. During a live broadcast, right after the match, Didier Drogba knelt in the locker room and, on behalf of the players, asked for national reconciliation — for a ceasefire between the north and the south, between the government and the rebels. Drogba’s call for elections helped end the military conflict and led to the signing of a formal peace agreement in 2007.

​

Let us aim into memory and move back to Poland in 2012. By simulating arabesques in a football cemetery at Foksal, we will begin to imagine the sources of social conflicts in Poland — where everyday absurdities and small fights in an apartment building grow into political disputes. As post-spectators, we will stand up from the stands and open the stadiums. We, dissidents in football boots, against the red. Sometimes a smile is enough, a gesture of stretching your leg toward the same ball, to blur the borders for a moment and remember that everything that divides us can also become a way to play together.