Glej,
Factory Daughter

Gallery

About the performance

Work has its own rhythm, and the body adapts to it. The speed of the machine, the acrobatics of the hands, the smell, the noise, the temperature of the room. Over the years, work becomes embodied knowledge. The body does not think; it knows. A factory produces more than just goods. It produces habits and organises life. It enters the home, sets schedules, dictates holidays, and slowly settles into memory. Generational, cultural, material, bodily. When does the shift end?

Factory Daughter returns to the 1960s and 1970s, a time of accelerated industrialisation, mass recruitment, and the growing entry of women into industrial labour. The female factory worker becomes one of the key figures of modernisation, caught between the production line and the household, emancipation and a new form of discipline. Industry promised a better future, but its present was built on precisely measured time, repetition, and the body's adaptation to the speed and demands of production. The rhythm of work did not remain behind the factory gates. “Even if it was hard, it was even harder at home afterwards. Just work, always rushing, always rushing.”

Through the industrial landscapes of this period, the performance opens a window onto the intimate experience of everyday life permeated by work. It is a collage of different layers of memory and experience: conversations with female factory workers from the former Mehanotehnika factory in Izola; research that the artist Silvia Viviani continued during residencies in Avignon and Soverato; and her own experience of growing up in an industrial environment. Documents, testimonies, and personal stories come together in an exploration of how work shapes the body, everyday life, and intimate relationships, and of how long its rhythm persists after the shift has ended.

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Across places and memories, the same motifs recur. Stench, sweat, medals, dirt, promises, accidents. Somewhere, at some point, the industrial future stretched 640 metres out into the sea; elsewhere, at another time, a school sprang up beside a river. The pier that was supposed to transform the city's future now stands in the water, a remnant of an unfulfilled promise. The metal rusts; swimming is forbidden. In the classroom, the windows crack, and the school is emptied. All it took was a single spark.

Yet on most days, nothing quite so dramatic happens. A factory worker comes home. She sets a bowl of alphabet pasta soup on the table.

Do you like clear soup?
Can you swim?
When did you last see a shooting star?
Do you like walking in circles?
Do you like fireworks?
Do you know which factory is closest to your home?
Do you like travelling by train?
Do you dream?

Credits

Concept, text and performance: Silvia Viviani
Dramaturgy: Iva Š. Slosar
Costumes and props: Katarina Zalar
Music and sound: Danijel Bogataj
Movement consultancy: Tajda Podobnik
Content consultancy: Janja Majzelj, Luna Pentek
Technical design of audio elements: Igor Vuk
Construction of scenic element: Virginio Viviani
Research residency consultancy: Guido Sciarroni
Residency translator and assistant: Victor Poty

Graphic design of the programme booklet and poster design: Grupa Ee / Mina Fina, Eva Bevec
Programme booklet editor: Iva Š. Slosar
Technical direction: Grega Mohorčič
Promotional photography: Marijo Županov
Performance filming and trailer production: Borut Bučinel
Proofreading: Barbara Cerkvenik
Creative production: Barbara Poček
Executive production: Paulina Pia Rogač
Public relations: Paulina Pia Rogač and Tina Malenšek
Production: Gledališče Glej
Residency co-production: IRA Institute (ITA), La Manufacture (FR)
Supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia and the City of Ljubljana

Acknowledgements to interviewees: Albina, Andrea, Antonio, Boleslav, Daniela, Fabio, Francine, Franck, Graziella, Igor, Jefel, Louis, Marica, Maurizio B., Maurizio C., Mirjana, Nadine, Sandra, Slavka, Virginio.
Acknowledgements to organisations: Dom Upokojencev Izola, Mairie de Monteux, Les Foyer des Têtes Blanches – Ville de Monteux, Dinamica Packaging, National Museum of Contemporary History of Slovenia, Associazione QuarantasetteZeroQuattro

Duration: 50 min
Premiere: 17 November 2026, Gledališče Glej

About the artist

Silvia Viviani is a performer and theatre-maker who strongly believes in theatre as a tool for social change.

Born in Italy in 1988, she studied in the United States and Europe, focusing on experimental theatre. Since 2012, she has continued her artistic journey in Slovenia, collaborating on a range of projects both within the theatre and in public spaces. Her ability to move fluidly between different styles, languages, and cultures enriches her artistic research, which is rooted in fieldwork and anthropological inquiry.

“Large-scale industry is therefore contrary to human nature and physical development; unless conducted thoughtfully and with care, it leads to the spread of rickets, anaemia, alienation from family and homeland, moral decline, and the degeneration of the population as a whole.”

(Silvio Benigno Crespi – On Measures for the Prevention of Industrial Accidents)