This is an exhibition about welcoming visitors and the fear of visitors. An exhibition about gold and rotten teeth, bowel movements, German washing powder, sweat and Ponglish. It will feature works from the “Tablecloths” series that Monika Drożyńska has been developing since 2019. As she puts it: “The tablecloth is used to celebrate life in community and relationships. I set the table with a tablecloth when I want to celebrate the day. I set the table with a tablecloth when I am going to host someone. We sit down at the table. The tablecloth brings us together. We keep our hands, our arms, our food, our drinks on it”.
The works were made using the technique of hand embroidery on fabric. Each is an “essay” written with words, characters and images. The artist uses many alphabets: Georgian, Hebrew or Cyrillic, Morse code and Braille, mixes phrases written in different languages: Polish, Ukrainian, German, English or Afrikaans, uses iconography taken from sign language, road and evacuation signs, iconography of political systems, logos of corporations and social movements, refers to the symbolism of prison tattoos or graphic interpretations of star constellations.
Monika Drożyńska’s embroideries are a record of the causes and effects of migration, emigration, one-way travel, and the role language plays in this story. In a nutshell – why we keep rushing somewhere and what comes out of it.
Stay tuned!
The project is a continuation of the exhibition “Dużo dobre/ Дуже добре” (Much Good), presented at the Foksal Gallery in the summer of 2021.