“Your body is a battleground”, declares Barbara Kruger’s iconic feminist artwork, capturing the spirit of the exhibition Against(standing). Silence shattering through the body [Przeciw(stawanie). Pękająca cisza ciałem], organised by the Katarzyna Kozyra Foundation in collaboration with Secondary Archive. Our bodies, especially women’s, are vulnerable and regulated, becoming sites of political and societal concern. The exhibition addresses these issues through the notions of community and care, transforming the act of being together into a form of silent resistance in a world that often prioritises individualism and self-reliance.
The exhibition is the second edition of the Against(standing) project, initiated by the Foundation in 2023 to support and promote emerging female artists. Curated by Malwina Bątruk, Agata Cieślak, Marta Romankiv, and Adrianna Wiktoria Kowalik, the event takes place in the Turnus na Wolskiej Gallery and features works by Magdalena Babicz, Magda Buczek, Dobrawa Borkała, and Ewelina Węgiel. All of them focus on gesture, movement, touch, and trace as nonverbal forms of communication, exploring how silenced or suppressed voices find expression through the body. Because resistance doesn’t always need to be loud; sometimes, a silent gesture can hold greater power than words.
Breaking Silence with the Body
A central theme of the exhibition is togetherness. We exist in relation to others, and so do our bodies. Isolation is a defining feature of many oppressive social structures. It results in division, silencing, and turning individuals against one another. Collectivity counters it by revealing what is often hidden or dismissed by norms, while creating alternative infrastructures of support.
Artists featured in Against(standing). Silence shattering through the body challenge imposed norms of visibility by focusing on the physical, organic, and fragile aspects of human existence. “Their works create a shared field in which the body is not a passive object of the gaze, but an active instrument of creation, resistance, and tender presence”, the curators say. Through different artistic media, such as performance, installation, sound and video, they explore how bodies – particularly female bodies – become silent instruments of critique, conveying memories, tensions, and connections.
“Artists featured in Against(standing). Silence shattering through the body challenge imposed norms of visibility by focusing on the physical, organic, and fragile aspects of human existence.”
As such, the exhibition opened with Chimera. Symphony of Breath (Chimera. Symfonia Oddechowa), a performance by Dobrawa Borkała. In addition to her studies in art, the artist also graduated in Clinical Psychology and investigates the therapeutic effects of breathing. Borkała views it then as an ongoing act of becoming and a dynamic exchange between the human body and its environment, bridging individual experience and shared existence. Collective, intentional breathing fosters a sense of togetherness and coexistence.
Alongside the performance, the exhibition features a video installation Chimera I. Oceanic Primordial Mother (Chimera I. Oceaniczna pramatka), inspired by the biological phenomenon of microchimerism, which describes a situation where a small number of genetically distinct cells are present in one organism, coming from another, often as a result of cell exchange between a mother and her fetus during pregnancy. The female body in Borkała’s work becomes an ocean where traces of different existences intertwine, suggesting interdependence as a vital, life-sustaining force.
This sense of a constant exchange between bodies and their surroundings also resonates in Magdalena Babicz’s practice, which turns to the emotional and psychological dimensions of human relationships. Her work merges intimate experiences with cultural observation to examine shifting dynamics of power and vulnerability, questioning norms around gender and identity. Przeciw(stawanie) features her two works – Untitled and Innocent – in which she explores the tensions between social expectations regarding female bodies and their desire for freedom.
Babicz’s depictions refer to the notion of symbolic violence, a term introduced by French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, describing a subtle, internalised form of violence learned through social norms and imposed on ourselves in conformity with dominant ideologies. In Babicz’s work, the woman attempts to free herself from this systemic violence through subtle yet unsettling gestures that challenge perpetuated standards of female meekness and purity. These gestures turn vulnerability itself into an act of quiet defiance.
While these constraints often stem from internalisation, they depend on a combination of external mechanisms that keep us in check – gaze (particularly the male gaze) being one of them. Being watched inclines us to behave within the norm. Such a notion of being subservient to others’ gaze is challenged in Magda Buczek’s works. In her video performance Close, too close, we observe, as through a peephole, parts of the body that are usually concealed – often due to shame and embarrassment – such as scars, wrinkles, body hair, and varied textures of the skin. Meanwhile, Safe in your skin, a brick-built structure, symbolises an effort to shield herself from invasive scrutiny and find refuge within her own body. Both works reflect a desire to regain control and resist oppressive social norms, either through radical exposure or concealment.
The exhibition also features Ewelina Węgiel’s tapestry Fire (Ognisko), which evokes a sense of community – a gathering of women around a fireplace, sharing their stories and experiences. It acts as a silent recording of memory, care, and ritual, woven into the fabric with embroidery, dirt, and a variety of fibres. The artist further delves into community-building themes in her performance Fairy Tales (Bajki), which incorporates performative whispering and listening to stories inspired by Eastern European folklore. Węgiel’s practice is rooted in quasi-documentary work centred on human and non-human communities that exist among the ruins of late capitalism, where storytelling and care become gestures of soft resilience.
Tenderness as Resistance
Taken together, the works create a landscape of embodied resistance – one that moves between the personal and the collective, the visible and the invisible. Relationality is a core element of the works presented in the exhibition: whether the viewer is invited to participate in a collective act of breathing or storytelling, or confronted with images of the female body that challenge societal norms, the presence of another – real or imagined – gives meaning to the experience.
“Taken together, the works create a landscape of embodied resistance – one that moves between the personal and the collective, the visible and the invisible.”
Yet, as art historian Claire Bishop reminds us in her book Artificial Hells (2012), participation is never a matter of pure harmony. It unfolds through negotiation, tension, and asymmetry within social structures. The exhibition acknowledges this ambivalence but, instead of striving for consensus, it finds resilience in care, proposing that empathy, too, can be a form of resistance. “For us, togetherness is a quiet way of standing beside one another — not against someone, but for one another”, the curators add. “It is a form of resistance that grows out of care, presence, and a gaze that connects rather than divides”.
In this light, both the curators and artists offer a quieter politics of relation, one that doesn’t erase conflict but softens it through attention and shared presence. They see community and participation as a shelter from the outside world, built on individualism and competition. The proposed defiance is tender but firm.
Przeciw(stawanie). Pękająca cisza ciałem
October 30 – November 30
Turnus na Wolskiej, Warsaw
