Małgorzata Mirga-Tas ‘Traveling Images’: A Retelling, a Renegotiation and a Homecoming

Małgorzata Mirga-Tas has quickly become a household name within the global art community, having gained international recognition for her monumental work ‘Re-enchanting the World’ showcased at the 59th Venice Biennale’s Polish Pavillion in 2022. As a Polish-Romani multimedia artist and activist, Mirga-Tas deconstructs historic representations of Roma people through a personalized retelling of her community. Her work depicts relatives and particularly women she has known personally or those who work in an activist or artist capacity through her vibrantly colored and patterned, delicately sewn patchworks, paintings, screens, and more.

Not bound by medium, scale, space, or subject, Mirga-Tas has triumphantly made her official solo exhibition debut in Kraków at the International Cultural Center (ICC). Through this debut, she provides Polish and multicultural audiences alike to experience her work back in its original context, origins, and renegotiations. Accompanied by ICC curator Natalia Żak on a guided tour of the exhibition, I was able to receive some additional insight as to the curatorial approach of the exhibition and how it serves to further empower Mirga-Tas’s work and themes.

Contextualising Mirga-Tas’s Work

Upon entering the exhibition, we are transported back in time to the past origins, representations, and perpetuations of Roma stereotypes and prejudices through the lens of painting, printmaking, photography, film, and more. Curator Żak describes this as an intended greeting of surprise, to first not come into immediate contact with Mirga-Tas’s work, but the works of many different artists from the past such as by French baroque printmaker and draftsman Jacques Callot. This introduction sets an important tone and context that serves as a powerful lens for the visitor to view the work so as to gain a better grasp of the socio-political depth and cultural significance of Mirga-Tas’s multi-layered work. 

The exhibition does an excellent job through its curatorial approach to provide meaningful contextual information throughout the entire exhibition so as to further enrich the depth of Mirga-Tas’s storytelling through her work. As Żak commented as we walked through the space, ‘There is constant critical dialogue throughout the show with her [Mirga-Tas’s] work… repeating images from the past and recreating them and tracing images, which relates to the title of the exhibition itself.’ We can understand the title as not only a telling of images that represent the experience of movement and of a nomadic lifestyle, but of imagery that has been passed down and is finally being challenged through its reinterpretation by Mirga-Tas – as well as its return back to Poland and Kraków with this exhibition.

In the second section of the exhibition, we are greeted by the pairing of archival photographers of Mirga-Tas’s family, taken by her uncle during Communism in 1980s Poland, alongside Mirga-Tas’s work. As the first Romani ethnologist in Poland, it is a fitting decolonising tactic for Mirga-Tas to expand upon this rich archive of renegotiation of Roma people from her own family archive through the depiction of family members through her mixed media pieces of screens, paintings, and patchworks. 

We see the artist’s sculpture background from her time as a student at the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine in Kraków (2004) filter through not only in her standalone screen pieces, but also in her patchwork and painting. Much of her work incorporates a delicately enmeshed mixed media approach of patchwork with fabrics of all shapes, textures, patterns as well as painting, that also often times incorporates found objects such as beads and a deck of cards, to complete the storytelling of the composition in such a way that the piece walks toes the line between what could be considered ‘fine art’ versus ‘craft’ as well as representation, surrealist, abstract, and avante-garde and somehow incorporates elements of all of influences all at once to create something that is truly one of a kind.

Curatorial Approach as Reinforcement for the Artist’s Vision

Curatorial choices, in collaboration with the artist, also included intentional recognition of the power of language in the retelling of these stories through a decolonial lens. For example, the word ‘Gypsy’, a term that has evolved into a derogatory term, was crossed out and replaced by ‘Roma’, shown as ‘Gypsy Roma’ in all texts displayed in the exhibition. This simple, but powerful decision provides another layer of renegotiation and reclaiming of representation and identity by Roma people. In addition, section titles such as ‘O fotografis’, the Romani word for ‘photographer’, were kept in Romani and not translated as titles, but given explanation in the description below. 

The film piece ‘Tradaw’ (2022), featuring Mirga-Tas and directed by Krzysztof Skonieczny, is a cinematic response to its predecessor piece ‘The Gypsy ROMANI Camp’ (1955). The former is a propaganda piece of a Roma guitar player in search of an engagement gift for his fiancée and his experience wandering through Kraków, told by an unknown narrator, which perpetuates various stereotypes of Roma people and has its protagonist begin to embrace life in the city and conform to the social norms outside of the Roma lifestyle. Told in a combination of Polish and Romani languages, Mirga-Tas’s iteration takes a far different approach. In her version, she herself is both the narrator and protagonist, telling her own story and by extension, symbolically helps the guitar playing protagonist regain his voice. The film is carefully shot to include many parallel shots, depicting identical locations throughout the storyline, while also including some distinct differences such as showing Mirga-Tas not just in Kraków, but in her studio and hometown of Czarna Góry in the south of Poland. Shown side-by-side as projections, viewers encounter these films about halfway through the exhibition. 

Another fascinating example and outcome of this well paired curatorial approach and Mirga-Tas’s work is the site-specific piece and room ‘Siukar Manusia’ (2022). This slightly more somber piece, translates a ‘great, or wonderful people’ in Romani, and beautifully depicts individuals who were first-generation inhabitants of Nowa Huta who also survived the Holocaust and was made specifically for this particular room at the ICC. Mirga-Tas decided to show these portraits, such as of Krystana Gil (1938-2021), in the ICC’s room with a Renaissance column, which subsequently informed the structure and framework for the whole piece. This stunning work had to be edited during the installation process, with curator Żak describing the intensive process of ensuring the piece fit perfectly in the space and also including some informational text on the depicted figures to complete the room.

Blending Artistic Practice with Activism

Another key contextual element that brings the artist’s work to further completion as both a vibrant artistic practice and as social, activist work is the intentional incorporation of selecting media that is intrinsically communal and deeply woven into the fabric of the Roma community’s heritage. This authentic link between the re-telling of past (her)stories as finally told by the descendants of these perpetuated narratives is embodied in each piece’s process, the final outcome being felt with every carefully stitched seam with the artist working with community of women, both within her family and working as professional sewers to complete many of her pieces.

We see this approach exemplified the most in the last two rooms of Mirga-Tas’s large-scale patchwork pieces, one entitled ‘Giantesses’ and ‘Out of Egypt.’ The former showcases the monumental, vibrant portraits of five exceptional women otherwise named ‘The heroines of Herstories’, from the 3rd Autostrada Biennale. Suspended from the ceiling, they feature the following women: Romani-British artist Delaine Le Bas, Romani-Jewish Macedonian composer and singer Esma Redzepova, women’s rights activist Shpresa Agushi from Gniilane and Zinet Galush a maker of traditional Romani women’s clothes from Prizren. Alongside these works are two pieces showcasing the artist herself with female family members and friends relaxing together and creating artistic work. ‘Out of Egypt’ (2021) brings our experience full circle with the re-imaging of an historic engraving series by Jacques Callot with her monumental patchwork series. Through this artivist work, she reclaims the restitution of Roma peoples historicisation and creates a contemporary visual for the Roma community, concluding with a patchwork that visitors must exit through and can touch to finish their visit of the exhibition.

Make sure you do not miss this once in a lifetime opportunity to see this cumulative exhibition of Mirga-Tas’s work, spanning a significant period of her career over the last several years. As Żak noted at the end of our discussion, ‘The Biennale provided an introduction to Mirga-Tas’s work, this exhibition [at ICC] serves as an opportunity to have a deeper and wider depiction of Mirga-Tas’s work.’ I couldn’t agree more;  ‘Traveling Images’ serves as a returning – or better yet, a reclaiming – home for Mirga-Tas. Not just for herself in revisiting Kraków following her success in Venice, but a reclaiming of her familial links to the area, such as in Nowa Huta, and for the Roma community in the region who are at long last, are not only having their stories told and heard, but are also actively taking part in the telling of their own stories.

See the exhibition ‘Traveling Images. Małgorzata Mirga-Tas’ at The International Cultural Centre in Kraków, on view through 5 March 2023. 

Curators: Wojciech Szymański, Natalia Żak