Magdalena Ciemierkiewicz ‘Dowry’

Exhibition opening: March 7, 2025 (Friday), 19.00
Where: Galeria Labirynt, Popiełuszki 5, Lublin
Language: opening in Polish. Translation into Polish Sign Language; interpreter: Marta Stępniak. Translation into Ukrainian; interpreter: Volodymyr Dyshlevuk. No translation into English.
On view until: April 20, 2025 (Tuesday-Sunday, 12.00-19.00)
Admission: PLN 8 full-price ticket, PLN 4 concession ticket (opening: free)

Curator: Monika Rejman

The artist, who comes from a small village on the Polish-Ukrainian border, explores the history and cultural experiences of the borderland as part of her own identity. The process creates a patchwork—a colourful fabric stitching together personal memories and the history of places—composed of roadside chapels, abandoned churches, scraps of fabric from her grandmother, childhood recollections, and traces of the region’s multicultural past. The “dowry” in the title refers to the old tradition of bringing money and wealth into a new marriage. Ciemierkiewicz shows how this symbol of past customs transforms in the context of contemporary social pressures, migration, and patriarchal patterns. The works are contextualised by the artist’s collection of women’s herstories—those of grandmothers, neighbours, and sisters—interwoven with the region’s multiethnic history. For the artist, “dowry” is not a passively inherited legacy but a reality she continuously reinterprets.

Magdalena Ciemierkiewicz – a visual artist born in 1992 in Rzeszów. She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw (2016), where she is currently pursuing her PhD “Herstory in Many Voices” in the studios of Andrzej Rysiński and Krzysztof Wodiczko. The cultural experience of the Polish-Ukrainian borderland and her personal perspective are central to her work. She explores themes such as multidimensional identity, women’s histories, and the intersections of cultures and forms of spirituality. She also engages with the context of difficult historical heritage and forms of memory. Ciemierkiewicz works with various media, including textiles, printmaking, video, and voice. In 2024, she received the Claus Michaletz Preis (Germany). Her works have been exhibited at KVOST (Berlin, 2024), Tiger Strikes Asteroid (Los Angeles, 2024), ISCP (New York, 2024), BWA Bydgoszcz (2024), Galeria Biała in Lublin (2022), and BWA Krosno (2022).