New Residents at Villa Decius 16.10.2025
We are delighted that Villa Decius has been a vibrant hub of creativity for many years, remaining a meeting place for artists, writers, and creators from all over the world. It is a space where new ideas are born, and diverse perspectives and experiences come together in a spirit of openness and dialogue.
New residents have just joined our creative community! The first days of their stay included meetings with the team of the Villa Decius Institute for Culture and its Director Dominika Kasprowicz, as well as with representatives of Kraków’s leading cultural institutions, including the Helena Modrzejewska National Stary Theatre.
As part of the Screenwriting Residency Programme at Villa Decius, the following artists will be developing their projects:
Ewe Benbenek
Playwright, researcher, and literary scholar. Born in Kamienna Góra in 1985, she studied cultural and political sciences and literature at universities in Frankfurt (Oder), London, and Erfurt. From 2014 to 2019, she worked as a research assistant at the University of Hamburg. She is the author of Tragödienbastard, which premiered at Schauspielhaus Wien in 2020. For this work, she received the Mülheim Drama Prize (2021) and the Schiller Memorial Prize for Young Writers (2022). Her plays often explore issues of classism, labor migration, and a critical re-examination of the German-language literary canon.
Jäckie Rydz
A Polish-German performance artist. Their first original production, BABYLON, premiered at Nowy Teatr in Warsaw in 2023 and was later presented at festivals in Germany. In June 2025, their solo performance OLYMPIA premiered at Ballhaus Ost Berlin. In their work, Jäckie explores themes of corporeality, memory, and queer identity, examining the relationships between body, space, and language.
During their residency at Villa Decius, Jäckie is working on a new project titled LAVA, which investigates how trauma is inherited not only through stories and silence but also through land, institutions, and the body itself.
We warmly welcome Ewe Benbenek and Jäckie Rydz to Villa Decius and look forward to seeing the results of their creative work — both here in Kraków and across Europe!
Special thanks to our partner, International Theatre Institute ITI Zentrum Deutschland.
As part of the Screenwriting Residency Programme at Villa Decius, the following artists will be developing their projects:
Ewe Benbenek
Playwright, researcher, and literary scholar. Born in Kamienna Góra in 1985, she studied cultural and political sciences and literature at universities in Frankfurt (Oder), London, and Erfurt. From 2014 to 2019, she worked as a research assistant at the University of Hamburg. She is the author of Tragödienbastard, which premiered at Schauspielhaus Wien in 2020. For this work, she received the Mülheim Drama Prize (2021) and the Schiller Memorial Prize for Young Writers (2022). Her plays often explore issues of classism, labor migration, and a critical re-examination of the German-language literary canon.
Jäckie Rydz
A Polish-German performance artist. Their first original production, BABYLON, premiered at Nowy Teatr in Warsaw in 2023 and was later presented at festivals in Germany. In June 2025, their solo performance OLYMPIA premiered at Ballhaus Ost Berlin. In their work, Jäckie explores themes of corporeality, memory, and queer identity, examining the relationships between body, space, and language.
During their residency at Villa Decius, Jäckie is working on a new project titled LAVA, which investigates how trauma is inherited not only through stories and silence but also through land, institutions, and the body itself.
We warmly welcome Ewe Benbenek and Jäckie Rydz to Villa Decius and look forward to seeing the results of their creative work — both here in Kraków and across Europe!
Special thanks to our partner, International Theatre Institute ITI Zentrum Deutschland.