Oskar Chmioła / Completed / 2020
The Last Ball
The Last Ball is a performance of ecological activism realised in 2020 at plac Grunwaldzki in Szczecin. Oskar Chmioła walked along the middle of the roadway against traffic, towards oncoming cars, carrying a potted plant in one hand and a flashlight blinking every second in the other. He concluded the action by planting the plant in the lawn beneath the historic clock.
Key facts and classification
- Date / period
- 2020
- Place
- plac Grunwaldzki, Szczecin
- Role and collaborators
- concept author and performer
- Genre
- performance; ecological activism
- Type of event
- public intervention
- Approach / perspective
- ecological artivism
- Thematic strand (interpretation)
- Action in public space; Participation and co-creation
- Style / mode of realisation
- public, symbolic
The classification is an editorial interpretation. Comparative categories do not imply membership of a movement or a declared source of inspiration.
Description of the work and the artist’s account
Preserved account: visual arts
Full document in the archive · Source URL
2020 – Artivist climate protest ‘The Last Ball’, plac Grunwaldzki, Szczecin
Additional account supplied by the artist, September 2026
The Last Ball is a performance of ecological activism realised in 2020 at plac Grunwaldzki in Szczecin. Oskar Chmioła walked along the middle of the roadway against traffic, towards oncoming cars, carrying a potted plant in one hand and a flashlight blinking every second in the other. He concluded the action by planting the plant in the lawn beneath the historic clock.
Interpretation of the project
Walking against the flow can be read as a gesture of resistance to an established order, while planting the plant suggests a shift from signalling a problem to caring for the living environment. The rhythm of light introduced a repeated unit of time into the action. This editorial interpretation relates to the sequence described by the artist and the performance’s ecological character.
Images, files and documentation
Pharmacy facade reference photograph: Szczecinolog, 2019, CC BY-SA 4.0. Visualization under the same licence. CC BY-SA 4.0Conceptual illustration generated with AI from the artist’s account. It is not a photograph or documentation of the event.Szczecinolog, 2019
Related works and performances
Art-historical and humanities contexts
Suggested readings and comparisons, distinguished from documented references.
Action in public space
Richard Long, Robert Kuśmirowski
Participation and co-creation
Roman Ondák, Lygia Clark
CV entry supplied by the artist — translation
2020 – Artivist climate protest ‘The Last Ball’, plac Grunwaldzki, Szczecin,
Editorial account updated on 18 September 2026.