Pickle Bar comes to Brussels for a pop-up as part of ‘The Belly of the City’, an exhibition curated by Aleksandra Wasilkowska in Brussels and organized by the National Institute of Architecture and Urban Planning (NIAiU). Located in the garage of a family home in Ixelles, the Berlin-based performative space founded in 2020 brings together Łukasz Jastrubczak, Ala Savashevich and Filipka Rutkowska for a weekend of music, workshops and performance.
“Spirit of the Bumblebee” by Łukasz Jastrubczak
Duch Jastrubczak will evoke the “Spirit of the Bumblebee” using the iconic Technics SX GA3 organ. The performance reflects on bumblebees in sterile laboratory conditions, where they pollinate crops without soil contact. Scientists view soil as a contamination risk, shortening the bees’ lifespan. After 10 days of labor, their bodies are removed, but their “spirits” linger in the sterile environment of the laboratory, accumulating within the hermetically sealed interior.
“Weaving Ancestors: Crafting Straw Figurines” with Ala Savashevich
In this workshop, participants will explore the ancient Slavic tradition of Dziady — a festival honoring the memory of the deceased, once observed across regions that now include Poland, Belarus, Lithuania, and Ukraine. Rooted in the belief that ancestors guide harvests and protect families, this ritual celebrates the cycle of life, death, and rebirth. Participants will learn about the cultural significance of straw, a material once revered for its connection to the “spirit of the grain” and the cycles of nature. Using simple tools like twine, floral wire, and straw, they will craft their own figurines while discovering traditional weaving techniques inspired by folk art.
“The Iron Lipstick” by Filipka Rutkowska
The Iron Lipstick is a performance combining spoken word and choreography, in which Margaret Thatcher is embodied and reimagined as a queer spectre, despite her anti-gay politics. Inspired by Damian Barr’s memoir Maggie and Me, a queer coming-of-age story set in 1980s Scotland, the work reanimates Thatcher’s iconic speeches to create a political fiction that calls for the abolition of gender in order to imagine a genderless society. Thatcher becomes a costume to be destabilised, multiplied, and re-performed: domination is recast as drag, and power is dismantled through performance. By queering a figure synonymous with oppression, the piece stages a paradoxical intimacy with history’s demons, exposing how they resurface today while opening the possibility of taming and transforming them. The performance incorporates a replica of Thatcher’s costume, recently displayed at a Christie’s auction.
Address:
Guillaume Macau 31, 1050 Ixelles.
Program:
30 October 2026
19:00 – Łukasz Jastrubczak, “Spirit of the Bumblebee”, music performance
31 October 2026
14:00 – Ala Savashevich, “Weaving Ancestors: Crafting Straw Figurines”, Workshop
Duration: 1.5 hours
Ages: 9-15
Language: French
17:00 – Filipka Rutkowska, “The Iron Lipstick”, performance
Duration: 20 minutes
Language: English
Łukasz Jastrubczak is an experimental artist and musician known for his solo project, Duch Jastrubczak. Since 2016, he has released cassettes blending improvised synthesiser, pipe organ, and field recordings. Notable works include Y (Pointless Geometry) and self-released albums like Utah Jazz. His performances span unconventional venues, from riverside sheds to churches, merging sound, history, and queer reinterpretation.
Ala Savashevich is an artist based in Wrocław. Her practice delves into collective and personal memory, trauma, and the processes of identity formation in societies shaped by authoritarianism and patriarchy. With a focus on women’s labor and the female body in the context of work, she examines how these forces intersect and shape both public and private realms. Working across monumental sculptures, video, and performance, Savashevich creates multi-layered narratives that challenge dominant historical and cultural narratives. Her work invites reflection on resilience, agency, and the often-invisible labor that sustains communities.
Filipka Rutkowska uses her own identity as an artistic medium. S/he explores multiple dimensions of otherness, weaving them into personal history. Moving fluidly across performance, film, theater, and literature, s/he addresses socially and emotionally complex topics in a language that is light, accessible, and often infused with humor. Her practice connects two key currents that have profoundly shaped contemporary Polish art: critical art and queer performance.