Małgorzata Mirga-Tas: Tełe Ćerhenia Jekh Jag

Małgorzata Mirga-Tas’s art is dedicated to the world of Roma culture. In her detailed, realistic depictions, she portrays everyday scenes—people smoking a cigarette, playing cards, or hanging up laundry. At Kunsthaus Bregenz, she is also presenting sculptures created especially for these rooms. They draw on mythical narratives and are at the same time symbols of the contemporary human condition.

Mirga-Tas gained international recognition in 2022 at the Venice Biennale, where she lined the Polish Pavilion with large-scale textile works. The three registers of images quote representations of months inspired by a famous Italian Renaissance fresco cycle: the calendar in the Palazzo Schifanoia in Ferrara. The zodiac signs in the center of her work are flanked by near life-size portraits. The top, colorful frieze tells the story of the Roma and their exodus to Europe. It is a narrative of migration and nomadic life, brought to life in a depiction of historical clothing, animals, and expansive landscapes. The bottom register shows scenes of contemporary daily life—community, femininity, friendship, and family.

By reclaiming their own narratives, the Roma community breaks with the centuries-old images of the other projected onto them by sections of society. The technique of fabric collage picks up on Roma craftsmanship. Yet Mirga-Tas’s textile art is much more than a tribute to traditional women’s work. She elevates sewing to the rank of political practice. One of her pictures shows a self-portrait of her sewing outside with other women. These female figures are not passive actors, but protagonists of their own lives. In Mirga-Tas’s art, work appears not as a burden, but as a source of identity and community.

The exhibition at Kunsthaus Bregenz is titled Tełe Ćerhenia Jekh Jag (Under the starry heavens a fire burns) and features large scale tapestries as well as sculptures of bears and men—the Jangare—made out of wax and coal. 

Małgorzata Mirga-Tas (b. 1978, Zakopane) lives and works in Czarna Góra. Her portrayals adopt the perspective of “minority feminism,” consciously advocating for women’s strength while also acknowledging the artist’s own cultural roots. She was the official Polish representative at the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022, the first Roma artist to represent any country. Her works have been presented in numerous solo and group exhibitions,