Arsenic Ballerinas is a solo exhibition by the Romanian artist Ioana Vreme Moser, whose interdisciplinary practice operates at the intersection of sound art, performance and the visual arts. The exhibition presents a strand of Vreme Moser’s artistic and research practice, developed since 2018, in which cosmetics are used to construct electronic instruments and generate sound. In doing so, she reveals less obvious connections between the histories of electronics, radio and war, and practices of beautification. The artist’s sound installations and original instruments made from make-up accessories explore femininity as a field of tension between control, resistance and the creation of new identities.

The exhibition offers a comprehensive view of the development of this process: from Coquetta, a project initiated through a series of performances in 2018, to the most recent installation in the Arsenic Ballerinas series (2026). It is accompanied by research materials documenting the evolution of the artist’s working methods and the links between the two series.

Coquetta is Vreme Moser’s alter ego: a stage diva born from childhood fantasies of ideal beauty and her experience of ballet. Here, make-up, the stage and movement become points of departure for exploring the relationship between the body and electronic circuits. The project began with the idea of transforming cosmetics, women’s accessories and discarded electronics into musical instruments. Over time, it evolved into a performative exploration of the rituals of make-up and technology. While constructing instruments from cosmetics, Vreme Moser assigns them sounds that evoke the toxicity of their materials. Lead, for instance, which connects the histories of lipstick and electronic solder, is deliberately given a dissonant tone. Sensors placed in powder compacts, red high heels transformed into synthesisers and lipstick whose sound begins to resemble a dentist’s drill when it touches the lips all function as autonomous instruments. Together, they form a system of sound objects within an improvised beauty salon.

The eponymous Arsenic Ballerinas is a long-term research project that connects the histories of make-up, technology, communication and war through shared materials and chemical elements found in lipsticks, radio receivers, electronic circuits and ammunition. It draws on the radio “wars” of 1990s Romania: the jamming of Western stations, the outreach strategies of Radio Free Europe and the culture of improvised DIY radio receivers. It also looks to the stories of forgotten female radio pioneers associated with the Young Lady Operators network. Among other activities, they organised YL Nets on selected radio frequencies – gatherings resembling pre-internet group chats. The artist incorporates texts from their archives, together with other recordings, into the soundscape of an installation made up of numerous lipsticks transformed into functioning radio receivers. Suspended in space like flying bullets, they receive a dense network of overlapping transmissions.

A further interpretative context is provided by its dialogue with the second exhibition presented simultaneously at Krupa Art Foundation, Marylin Monroe. I Feel Like I Know Her, but Sometimes My Arms Bend Back. Both projects explore personal and socio-political narratives surrounding strategies of self-presentation: femininity, make-up, costume and persona, as well as emancipation and women’s networks of resistance. The title of the second exhibition draws on David Lynch’s work, specifically the television series Twin Peaks, in which electricity, wires, radio signals, transmission and electrical discharges become media of passage between realities and communication with the hidden. In Wired Noise Boudoir, seductive yet dangerous red lips, red curtains and a distorted radio signal create an atmosphere of mystery, alongside the electrifying sensation of sensibilities tuning in to new frequencies.

Arsenic Ballerinas – an exhibition by Ioana Vreme Moser
Curated by Monika Łuszpak-Skiba

Partners: iii, CTM Festival
Media Partner: MINT

Krupa Art Foundation, Wrocław
15 July – 4 October 2026

Opening: 15 July 2026, 7:00 PM | Claim your free ticket