Wake Up, My Homeland!
This poetry protest performance challenges the Hungarian government's communication strategy, urging citizens to take action. The work critiques the state's “national consultation” questionnaire through visual and vocal interventions: large question marks, cut from the official questionnaire, are worn on the performer’s coat as symbolic opposition.
While wearing these cut-outs, the performer walks along Budapest’s boulevard for 54 minutes, repeatedly reciting lines from Sándor PetÅ‘fi’s poem To the Nation, insisting: “Wake up, my homeland – wake up. Through the repeated recitation of PetÅ‘fi’s lines, the performance functions as a live poem addressed to the present, not only to history. It insists that the poet’s call to “wake up, my homeland” is still urgent today, and that it must be spoken aloud many times, over a longer duration, until it is heard.
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The extended 54‑minute walk along the boulevard in Budapest is therefore essential: the length, the physical effort, and the accumulation of the repeated verses together form the core poetic gesture of the work.
