Visegrad Lecture Series

20 Minutes of Clarity - What if we decrypted, together, our reality?

by Ioana Păun, performance artist

How do we make sense of stories we haven’t lived?

Especially when they are told by the media and those who set the tone for what’s good, what's bad, and what's, well, ugly.

Join a 20-minute participatory session where we will engage—anonymously and online—in a fast-paced, playful format that helps surfacing our interpretative reflexes, mental shortcuts, and who we instinctively trust.

No preparation required, just presence and an internet connection.

The session is part of an two-month artistic research residency at the Blinken OSA Archivum, focusing on Cold War-era files and the global phenomenon of plane hijackings in the 1970s.

The session is led by Romanian performance artist Ioana Păun, whose practice moves between local and international stages. With a background in Performance Art from Goldsmiths University of London, she designs situation-based formats at the intersection of performance and unpredictability. Her work has been present in institutional contexts such as MuseumsQuartier Vienna, National Museum of Mexican Art Chicago, le phénix | Scène Nationale Valenciennes, Les Tanneurs, National Dance Centre and MNAC Bucharest, or Ashtar Theatre in Palestine, and has recently expanded into film. Her debut film Emilia Hosu Has HIV was met with heartening acclaim at TIFF and FEKK, being awarded with the Critics’ Jury Award and Best Local Short.

Anyone is welcome. Participation is free, protected from any intrusion and no expectations are placed on the audience. For those who wish, there will be space for a brief open exchange afterwards.

Before we start, let’s ask ourselves: in the stories we’re told, are we the cowboys? Or the Indians?