MODEM presents the first Hungarian solo exhibition of Polish artist Alicja Wysocka, whose interdisciplinary installation Salt, Steam, Skin – Notes from Below connects the industrial past of Silesia with the geothermal landscape and civic traditions of Debrecen.

Wysocka collaborates with the Gradient Contemporary Ballet Debrecen to create a slow, meditative performance built from simple hand-based gestures. These movements draw from three sources: Silesian mining culture, Debrecen’s Reformed civic traditions, and everyday forms of touch and support.

A key point of reference is the cultural tension between the Catholic liturgical order of Silesia—with its saints, blessings, and the annual Feast of Saint Barbara—and Debrecen’s Reformed ethos, defined by restraint, collective responsibility, and a humble approach to prayer.

The installation unfolds along this symbolic geological faultline. Graphite drawings accumulate on the walls like traces of movement; video works show close-up gestures of labour and touch; and the performance leaves behind a series of black handprints—marks of presence, effort, and shared time. The exhibition asks how bodies carry history, and how communities can rediscover forms of care through the very gestures once used for work and survival.

Salt, Steam, Skin – Notes from Below invites visitors into a slow, attentive environment where labour and regeneration, discipline and softness, Catholic ceremoniality and Protestant puritanism, past and present resonate together—like two currents of an underground river meeting beneath the skin.