difficult age
2026
reclaimed fabrics, threads, cotton lace, foam, snap fasteners, zipper
250 × 200 × 2 cm

This work is an account of another collision with parenthood. It was created — not coincidentally — ten years after Please Don’t Be Afraid, She Won’t Bite, and once again addresses the challenges of being the parent of a teenage daughter.

The piece presents a theatrical stage. The main actress, Lady Dramma, stands on a bed — her refuge, a place of privacy and rest. At the same time, this references The Princess and the Pea. The girl’s body is, on one hand, fragile and almost fairy-tale-like, resembling a princess hypersensitive to the slightest stimulus; on the other, her hair spreads like snakes, evoking Medusa — a creature whose gaze turns others to stone.

The books on the shelf in the background speak of a constant desire to escape from one world into another — of endlessly navigating between childhood and adulthood. The whole scene is completed by phrases typically directed at parents by teenage girls.

This tension forms the axis of the work: between delicacy and strength, between vulnerability and the ability to affect others. An emotion that from the outside may appear exaggerated or absurd is, from within, experienced as entirely real and absolute.

The theatricality of the situation becomes an analogy for the relationship with a teenage daughter — a relationship that begins to resemble theatre: repetitive, intense, at times difficult to endure, yet inseparable from the process of growing up. Curtains enclose the space, heightening the sense of claustrophobia and entrapment characteristic of transitional moments — when an old form of closeness ceases to function and a new one has not yet fully emerged.

Lady Dramma is not merely a portrayal of an adolescent girl. She is a liminal figure — someone still constructing her identity, testing boundaries and the language of emotions. In this work, everyday life shifts toward myth and theatre, while banal situations reveal their deeper structure: the tension between being someone’s child and becoming someone separate.

The performance presented here does not resolve this tension. It leaves it suspended — in a space where laughter, helplessness, and something difficult to name coexist simultaneously.