March 1, 2021 – September 30, 2021
Monika Drożyńska
“Dwa/Fünf”
Curator:
- Monika Leisch-Kiesl
- Franziska Heiß
The presentation of Monika Drożyńska’s works at KU Linz focusses on two, partly related topics: The centerpiece is a large format textile work, about 19 meters long, located in the staircase of the new building, which was created especially for this place and the scientific orientation of the university. Like a vertical banner, it reaches from the ceiling down to the cellar and unfolds itself step by step while climbing the stairs up and down. The hand embroideries thematize the syntactic and typographical peculiarities and their political connotations within the Ukrainian, the German and the Polish language.
Monika Drożyńska (*1979) lives and works in Krakow, Poland. She is an artist, designer, performer and activist. Drożyńska works mainly with hand-embroidery and fabrics. Content-wise she is interested in languages, their techniques and linguistic particularities. Within her works, she plays with language, letters, signs and their meanings, which she hand embroiders onto fabric. Currently Drożyńska is focused on the topic social distancing, which is also the subject of her latest project Dwa [Two]. Her works can often be found in a field of tension between art, society and nationality. Monika Drożyńska not only shows her works in
exhibition spaces, but also in public places. There she connects them with social messages and events. She is co-founder of “Hands of Gold”, an “embroidery school for ladies and gentlemen”. It is a meeting place for people with different backgrounds and genders, who come together to embroider there.
In addition to a number of exhibitions in Poland, her works have already gained international attention/recognition. Her works are in several public and private collections in Poland and beyond. She received a number of awards, such as scholarships from the Ministry of Culture of Poland and the British Council in London. Currently Monika Drożyńska is working on her PhD-project at the Academy of fine Arts in Krakow.
Photo: Courtesy by Monika Drożyńska and Biuro Wystaw / Polish Modern Art Foundation”