Moving, full of depth artworks by Małgorzata Mirga-Tas adorn the walls of Frith Street Gallery, on Golden Square in what is the artist’s first UK exhibition, on until 11th November.
Artist, educator, and activist Malgorzata Mirga-Tas highlights through her art the Romani Community, depicting portraits, life stories, relationships, and the everyday.
The artist dedicates her work to justice for the community, breaking through prejudices, showcasing anti-Romani stereotypes.
Mirga-Tas’ large scaled significant textile artworks, with patchworks and collages of fabrics sewn together, are made up of curtains, jewellery, shirts, and sheets, materials collected from her family and friends. Once the artist draws the figures, the fabrics are reconceptualized into the portraits from the Romani community.
The exhibited series at Frith Street Gallery, is entitled Siukar Manusia, which translated from Romani means the great, wonderful people. It is a series of first-generation Romani inhabitants of the Nowa Huta district in eastern Kraków, workers who built the area, survivors of the Holocaust and WW II, Roma activists and musicians.
The artworks evolved from two of Malgorzata Mirga-Tas previous projects, HERSTORIES, created in 2019 in collaboration with a Kosovan Romani community, and Re-enchanting the World from 2022 shown at The Polish Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale.
Further inspiration for the Siukar Manusia series, comes from the book O Romach w Nowej Hucie słów Kilka (A handful of facts on the Nowa Huta Roma) by Monika Szewczyk and Krystyna Gil’s life story (1938–2021) who was the first Romani tram driver.
The Siukar Manusia portraits are based on both audiovisual archives of the USC Shoah Foundation that holds the testimonies of Romani Holocaust survivors, and personal photographs from the artist’s friends and family. Further to that, the artist was able to meet with Krystina Gil, Marian Gil, Leszek and Grazyna, who’s portraits feature in the show.
Malgorzata Mirga-Tas aims through the textile artworks, the donated fabrics and threads sewing the pieces together, to compose each portrait’s story, give each fabric a second life, relay for each person their history in dignity.
The dark navy-blue fabric that forms part of each portrait’s background, is, as Mirga-Tas mentions, representing the darkness in which each person has come from, and the patchwork collage the portraits are made up of, exposes the light that they each possess, carrying it forward with them, through their life story, and now through these works of art, in a must see exhibition, showcasing humanity, highlighting the acts of remembrance, preservation, and respect.
"It is hard to separate activism from art. These two activities merge, permeating and affecting each other… I can’t shout. I thought that what I can do is talk about my community, show how we see ourselves. And the tool I use is art." — Malgorzata Mirga-Tas @ Frith Street Gallery
Małgorzata Prusak, from the series Siukar Manusia, 2022, Textile, acrylic on wooden stretcher, 260 x 270 cm / 102 3/8 x 106 1/4 in
"During World War II Małgorzata Prusak was placed in a forced-labour camp near Nowy Targ, along with her brother and parents. She was the first Roma in Nowa Huta to pass Poland's secondary school final exams. She was awarded the Cross of Merit for her many years' work." — Malgorzata Mirga-Tas @ Frith Street Gallery
MAŁGORZATA MIRGA-TAS, Augustyn Gabor z córką Elżbietą / Augustyn Gabor with his daughter Elżbieta, from the series Siukar Manusia, 2022,
Textile, acrylic on wooden stretcher, 260 x 270 cm / 102 3/8 x 106 1/4 in
"Augustyn Gabor was as born into a family of musicians. An eminent violinist: in the inter-war period, he played with orchestras across Hungary. To this day, the oldest resident of Kachin remember him as a consummate musician and a well-to-do man, who was treated with respect and reverence. He moved to Nowa Huta along with every Romani living in Kacwin." — Malgorzata Mirga-Tas @ Frith Street Gallery
MAŁGORZATA MIRGA-TAS, Anna i Jan Gilowie / Anna and Jan Gil, from the series Siukar Manusia, 2022,Textile, acrylic on wooden stretcher
260 x 270 cm / 102 3/8 x 106 1/4 in
"Anna Gil survived the war in hiding; she worked in a single place of employment for forty years, as a result of which she was awarded the Cross of Merit. Jan Gil was among the first builders of Nowa Huta; for many years, a worker at the Lenin Steelworks." — Malgorzata Mirga-Tas @ Frith Street Gallery
MAŁGORZATA MIRGA-TAS, Katarzyna Oraczko z synem Leszkiem / Katarzyna Oraczko with her son Leszek, from the series Siukar Manusia, 2022
Textile, acrylic on wooden stretcher, 260 x 270 cm / 102 3/8 x 106 1/4 in
"Katarzyna Oraczko was born in 1931 in Trybsz and she became Nowa Huta in the 1950s, together with her husband Andrzej Oraczko. She worked as a cook in a Kraków restaurant." — Malgorzata Mirga-Tas @ Frith Street Gallery
MAŁGORZATA MIRGA-TAS, Krystyna Gil, from the series Siukar Manusia, 2022, Textile, acrylic on wooden stretcher, 260 x 270 cm / 102 3/8 x 106 1/4 in
"Romani activist, witness to history, first Romani tram driver. Krystyna Gil's family was murdered in 1943; she was imprisoned by the Nazis in Plaszow concentration camp. Founder and director of the Association of Romani Women in Poland. She came to Nowa Huta in the 1950s from Szczurowa, her home village." — Malgorzata Mirga-Tas @ Frith Street Gallery
MAŁGORZATA MIRGA-TAS, Marian Gil, from the series Siukar Manusia, 2022, Textile, acrylic on wooden stretcher, 260 x 270 cm / 102 3/8 x 106 1/4 in
"Marian Gil came to Nowa Huta with his family in the 1950s. As a sixteen-year-old, he started working at the Lenin Steelworks. In 1994 he set up the Roma Association in Kraków and was its president for twenty-three years. He established the Legal Advice Office, where the Roma could reach out to help. The association conducted educational and employment programmes for the Roma in Nowa Huta, during the transition from a communist system to a democratic, free-market one." — Malgorzata Mirga-Tas @ Frith Street Gallery
MAŁGORZATA MIRGA-TAS, Wanda Siwak, from the series Siukar Manusia, 2022,Textile, acrylic on wooden stretcher, 260 x 270 cm /102 3/8 x 106 1/4 in
"Concentration camp prisoner. During World War ll Wanda Siwak's family was shot dead by the Germans. After the war, she found her sister (Edward Dunka's mother) in the Recovered Territories (former German lands that were awarded to Poland in 1945). She would spend the rest of her life searching for her daughter, who had been hidden from the Germans in area that is now part of Ukraine. On her deathbed, she asked her nephew Edward Dunka to continue the search." — Malgorzata Mirga-Tas @ Frith Street Gallery
MAŁGORZATA MIRGA-TAS, Edward Dunka, from the series Siukar Manusia, 2022,Textile,acrylic on wooden stretcher,260 x 270 cm /102 3/8 x 106 1/4 in
"Activist for the Rom und Cinti Union in Hamburg since the 1980s. In 1983 Edward Dunka took part in the hunger strike at the site of the Neuengamme concentration camp, as well as in pickets, protest marches, and church sit-ins; he took on the role of spokesperson for the Roma facing deportation. In Ukraine, he ultimately found the family of Wanda Siwak's daughter, who had been hidden from the Germans by her mother." — Malgorzata Mirga-Tas @ Frith Street Gallery
MAŁGORZATA MIRGA-TAS, Andrzej Oraczko z córką Grażyną / Andrzej Oraczko with his daughter Grażyna, from the series Siukar Manusia, 2022, Textile, acrylic on wooden stretcher, 260 x 270 cm / 102 3/8 x 106 1/4 in
"Andrzej Oraczko was born in 1927 in Łapse Wyżne. He lived in Nowa Huta as of the 1950s and worked at the Lenin Steelworks. He was a talented self-taught musician and fiddler. An honest and upbeat person, he liked helping others." — Malgorzata Mirga-Tas @ Frith Street Gallery
'I chose this background to show that they came to us from darkness and we see them, and they are visible now and they have their own voice. They can say something about themselves. And we give them dignity; I give them dignity.'— Malgorzata Mirga-Tas @ Frith Street Gallery
All pictures taken at Frith Street Gallery. All artworks by Malgorzata Mirga-Tas.
All Quotes and details of pictures @— Malgorzata Mirga-Tas @ Frith Street Gallery
