»Paskudnik« is a post-­migrant drag persona who has gotten lost while crossing the border between Germany and Poland, between the past and the future. »Paskudnik« is a word that was often uttered by the grandfather to address the grandchild. In memory, it is located somewhere between dining table, soccer match, parasite, and disgust. There is no unambiguous translation. The precise meaning of the term remains elusive.

With »Paskudnik«, Tubi Malcharzik takes a queer view of the own German-­Polish family history and sets off on a search for this familiar yet undecipher­able hole in the collective family memory. Around fifty years after Willy Brandt’s genuflection and the arrival of the family at the immigrant transit camp Friedland in the Federal Republic of Germany, Malcharzik and an inter­disciplinary team take »Paskudnik« as the starting point of a performance that uses immersive soundscapes, narrative fragments and imagination to open up a queer and post-migrant space of memory. They invite the audience to the dining table of an Upper Silesian family festivity and to the interface of a dating app to become familiar with the experiences of queerness and anti-­Slavism. Using a red velvet dress, myths of high cheekbones and songs by t.A.T.u. ↗ and Peter Alexander, the performance raises questions about gender roles and sexuality as well as German-­Polish commem­oration culture and post-­migrant reality.