Bárbara Sánchez-Kane performance and launch of Artist Talk Series

Mudam Luxembourg—Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean is pleased to announce a major new performance, artist talks and workshops this spring. 

Reflecting the museum’s commitment to dialogue, experimental formats and public engagement, the Spring programme features a major new performance commission by Bárbara Sánchez-Kane; a series of artist talks with Fiona Banner aka The Vanity Press, Carine Krecké, Eva Koťátková, Annette Kelm and Turner Prize-winners Lubaina Himid and Susan Philipsz; and workshops led by Magda Stawarska and Omar Kholeif. Together, these events form a discursive platform where artistic research, embodied knowledge and cross-disciplinary practice intersect with public participation.

Bringing together artists and cultural practitioners from across the globe, Mudam is committed to presenting a programme that is accessible, experimental, transnational and transdisciplinary. We believe that the art of the past and present reflects the world we live in—provoking thought and emotion—and our programme seeks to foster new relationships between ideas, people, communities, generations, objects and narratives.

Saturday May 17 and Sunday May 18, 2025, 2pm
Performance: Bárbara Sánchez-Kane, Aguas Frescas
In collaboration with Debit, Liina Magnea, Cucina Povera, Lucy Railton and the Pueri Cantores boys’ choir of the Conservatoire de la Ville de Luxembourg
Curated by Clémentine Proby, assisted by Julie Kohn

Envisioned as a space of mutable symphonies, Aguas Frescas is a major new performance by Mexican artist Bárbara Sánchez-Kane, co-commissioned by Mudam and TONO Festival. Premiered in Mexico City in March 2025, this performance will be presented as part of Luxembourg Museum Days. 

Drawing on Mexican street culture and the tradition of aguas frescas—fruit drinks commonly sold by street vendors—the performance proposes an expanded definition of poetry as a communal, durational and sensorial act. Conceived as a “poetry fountain,” the piece features contributions from the artist’s circle of collaborators and friends.

Over two hours, dancers, musicians and performance artists share their work in a fluid, shifting sequence. Two sculptural objects anchor the piece: traditional Mexican chairs called Malinche carrying glass containers of fresh horchata. A metallic spoon stirs the liquid, setting a steady rhythm like a metronome. Visitors are invited to partake in the aguas frescas during the performance, underscoring its metaphor of shared experience and collective engagement. Evolving across geographies and disciplines, Aguas Frescas embodies Sánchez-Kane’s hybrid practice and Mudam’s ongoing exploration of collaborative, cross-cultural production.

Saturday May 3, 2025, 3pm
Workshop: Stitching Verse, Linking Dreams
With Omar Kholeif

This workshop is part of the public programme accompanying Nets for Night and Day, the first full-scale European survey of the collaborative practice of Lubaina Himid and Magda Stawarska. Conceived as a performance, the exhibition emerges from a decade-long dialogue between British painter Lubaina Himid (b. 1954, Zanzibar), a leading figure of the British Black Arts Movement, and multidisciplinary polish-born artist Magda Stawarska (b. 1976, Ruda Śląska), whose work interweaves moving image, soundscapes and screen printing. Throughout the exhibition, sculptural boats and found objects map a topography of dreams and the sea, while installations explore language, ritual and the lyric potential of daily life.

This workshop is divided into two sessions—one for youth (ages 13–18), the other for adults—and invites participants to engage in a day of poetic inquiry led by the exhibition’s curator and writer Omar Kholeif. Through guided prompts, participants will wander, reflect and depart with a self-authored poem attuned to the poetics of everyday life.

Thursday May 8, 2025, 6:30pm
Artist Talk: Susan Philipsz, The Lower World
Moderated by Bettina Steinbrügge

In collaboration with LUGA–Luxembourg Urban Garden, Mudam presents The Lower World, a newly commissioned sound installation by Scottish artist Susan Philipsz (b. 1965, Glasgow), renowned for immersive works that explore the sculptural and emotional dimensions of sound. This installation is set within Luxembourg’s Aquatunnel, a 900-meter underground passage connecting the Pétrusse Valley to the Pfaffenthal district beneath the historic Ville Haute. ​

In this talk, Philipsz, who was awarded the Turner Prize in 2010, investigates the impact of sound in public space. Additionally, Philipsz will share insights into The Lower World, where the artist utilizes the human voice and transformed sounds to create immersive experiences that invite visitors to rediscover their environment from a new perspective.

Wednesday May 21, 2025, 7pm
Artist Talk Series
With Fiona Banner aka The Vanity Press (May, 21),  Eva Koťátková (July, 25), Annette Kelm (September, 17), Carine Krecké (November, 12)

On the occasion of the new collection display, Radio Luxembourg: Echoes across borders, Mudam launches an Artist Talks Series. Bringing together multiple generations of women artists born in Europe and the United States, this series highlights a selection of artists that have recently entered the collection, made possible through the generosity of German collectors Gaby and Wilhelm Schürmann, and with the support of members of the Cercle des collectionneurs du Mudam Luxembourg.

The Artist Talk Series offers a closer look at how artists engage with the upheavals of their time, intertwining personal and collective narratives of the past thirty years. Their work reflects societal transformations, highlighting aspirations, uprisings and forms of resistance at the turn of the 21st century. It questions the validity of dominant models, exposes the flaws of political regimes and imagines alternatives.

Saturday June 7, 2025, 2:30pm
Artist Talk: Lubaina Himid
Moderated by Florence Ostende

This lecture by renowned British artist and Turner Prize laureate Lubaina Himid CBE RA is part of the public programme accompanying Nets for Night and Day, the first full-scale European survey of the collaborative practice of Lubaina Himid and Magda Stawarska. Lubaina Himid was born in Zanzibar in 1954, and now lives and works in the UK. She is an artist who for over four decades has explored and expanded the possibilities of painting and storytelling to depict contemporary everyday life and to fill gaps in art history. Self-described as a painter, cultural activist, witness, storyteller and historian, Himid is an influential figure within the British Black Arts Movement in the 1980s, and has been a champion of women artists in her role as a teacher, curator, critic and organizer. In 2026, Lubaina Himid will represent Great Britain at the 61st Venice Biennale.

Sunday June 8, 2025, 2:30pm
Listening Session: Magda Stawarska, Ida & Friends

This workshop is part of the public programme accompanying Nets for Night and Day, the first full-scale European survey of the collaborative practice of Magda Stawarska and Lubaina Himid. In her silkscreen print Drift Horizon, Stawarska builds upon her signature approach: getting lost in cities whilst observing society. A practice akin to the flâneur, it often unfolds with discreet recording equipment in hand. These recordings are later adapted, shared with select listeners, annotated and re-exposed to the world in multi-layered compositions, revealing contradictions embedded in the geopolitics of urban life. This process of revelation is what Stawarska calls the act of “inner listening.”

Inviting participants on a sonic dérive, Stawarska’s workshop starts inside the galleries of Nets for Night and Day and moves into the museum’s surrounding terrain, exploring how walking, listening and dreaming mediate our perception of place. The title is drawn from Gertrude Stein’s 1941 novel Ida, evoking the protagonist’s boundless curiosity and her longing for both movement and stillness.

Full programme available at mudam.com.