Milkbaby – Pat Dudek & MANOID – Milkbaby is the stage persona of the pop star created by performance artist, audiovisual artist, singer, and songwriter Pat Dudek, and music producer, live performer, and sound designer MANOID. Together, they wrote, composed, and performed original music under the Milkbaby pseudonym.
The need to create a queer/transgender pop singer character (aimed at mainstream audiences) was born out of resistance to the trend of denying “queer” art the right to transcend boundaries, i.e., to address universal issues.
Milkbaby’s debut performance took place in 2019 at the opening of the international exhibition “Paint, also Known as Blood” at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, curated by Natalia Sielewicz. The following year, the debut music video for “Holy Milk”, directed by Jakub Wróblewski, won the “debut” category at the PL Music Video Awards. Milkbaby’s tracks have been played in venues such as Zachęta – National Gallery of Art, the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, the Foksal Gallery Foundation, and during the Warsaw Gallery Weekend 2024.
Pat Dudek – artist working in audiovisual and performative arts, a singer, and a songwriter. Her vocal-performative work and collaborations with visual artists and directors have been showcased in venues like Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin, the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Zachęta Gallery, the Foksal Gallery Foundation, and Królikarnia. As a vocalist and performance artist, she has collaborated with visual artists and directors such as Wojciech Puś, Paulina Ołowska, Anna Baumgart, the X-Philes Collective, Grzegorz Jaremko, and Tim Plamper.
MANOID – DJ, producer, live performer, and sound designer. In late 2018, he released his debut album “Truth LP” with the German label hafendisko. The album was highlighted by critics across Europe (including being named Album of the Month by FAZEmag), and the music video for the track “Take me” won first place in the “Electronic Music” category at the PL Music Video Awards and was shown at the Berlin Music Video Awards.
Performing original live acts, the artist has frequently appeared at major Polish festivals such as Tauron New Music and Instytut [Institute] Festival, as well as internationally – from Iceland to South Korea. In 2019, he performed on the main stage of Audioriver with the premiere of the utopian play “Afterhuman Afterparty”, co-created with the duo Hashimotowiksa.
In 2021, their new material debuted at events such as Boiler Room x Instytut Festival in Modlin, while their DJ sets resonated across nearly every corner of Poland.
Photograph: The image shows two people embracing, dressed in formal wedding-like attire. The woman is holding her pregnant belly, while a small child stands beside them, facing forward. In the foreground, a scantily clad figure lies with their face directed towards the camera.