The catalogue that accompanies the exhibition Re-enchanting the World by Małgorzata Mirga-Tas
in the Polish Pavilion at the 59th International Art Exhibition (the first time that a Roma artist is representing a national pavilion in the over-120-year history of the Venice Biennale): an attempt to expand the Polish and European iconosphere and art history with representations of Roma culture.
Re-enchanting the World is a publication accompanying Małgorzata Mirga-Tas's exhibition of the same name, shown in the Polish pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale. The exhibit is Mirga-Tas's manifesto on Roma identity and art, drawing inspiration from the Renaissance frescoes of the Palazzo Schifanoia in Ferrara and thus attempting to expand the European iconosphere and history of art with representations of Roma culture.
The title of the project and this book is inspired by Silvia Federici's book Re-enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons (2018), in which re-enchanting—a non-violent process in which women play an important role—reverses the unfortunate fate of the world, shaking off its evil spell. This publication presents Mirga-Tas's re-enchanting of the world as a way of recovering the idea of the Roma community, with consideration to transnationality, cyclicity and the evolution of meanings, proposing a new narrative about the continuous cultural migration of images and mutual influences between Roma, Polish and European cultures.
Within the multidirectional texts featuring poetry, prose and essays, as well as images of Mirga-Tas's project and its process, we witness her re-enchantment of the world through a re-examination of identity, a recognition of feminine power, and a re-presentation of historical and contemporary visual narratives.
Małgorzata Mirga-Tas (born 1978 in Zakopane, Poland) is a Polish-Romani artist and activist. She deals with antyziganist stereotypes and engages in building an affirmative and situated iconography of a Roma community from a perspective of a feminism of minority. Characteristic motives and forms are distinguishable in her works, and she successfully applies them on paper, fabric or sculpting materials. She is also involved in social activities, fighting discrimination, and social exclusion.
Małgorzata Mirga-Tas's works have been shown at several dozen individual and collective exhibitions, including the 11th Berlin Biennale (2020), the Moravian Gallery in Brno (2017), the Center of Polish Sculpture in Orońsko (2020), Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (2020), at the "Art Encounters" Biennale in Timişoara (2019) or Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum – Kulturen der Welt in Cologne . Since 2011 she has been organizing the international artistic residency program "Jaw Dikh!" in Czarna Góra, intended for Roma and non-Roma artists. She received distinction at the 42nd and 44th Painting Biennale "Bielska Jesień" (2015, 2019), a scholarship holder of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage (2018). She was laureate of Polityka's Passport for the best artist from Poland in 2020, the Maria Anto and Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven Art Prize for a Young Polish Artist (2021) counteracting exclusion, racial discrimination and xenophobia.
Edited by Wojciech Szymański and Joanna Warsza.
Contributions by
Małgorzata Mirga-Tas, Wojciech Szymański, Joanna Warsza, Damian Le Bas, Ethel C. Brooks, Robert Kusek, Jan Mirga, Teresa Mirga, Ali Smith.
