Małgorzata Mirga-Tas & Sráč Sam | Companion

The exhibition presents a dialogue between two distinctive female artistic voices — Polish Romani visual artist Małgorzata Mirga-Tas and Czech artist Sráč Sam. Both work with textile as a medium of memory, identity, and female experience, yet from different artistic and cultural positions, brought together here in a unique encounter. While Małgorzata Mirga-Tas focuses on the Romani community and its visual and narrative representation, Sráč Sam, in the context of this exhibition, works with an architectural installation in which textile appears only minimally — primarily as an everyday carrier of meaning in sewn garments. At the same time, on a considerable scale in the form of a constructed environment, she demonstrates the interconnectedness of individual elements within the overall composition, as well as the idea that having a space for rest is a prerequisite for the creation of content and relationships.

The project connects an established Romani artist, whose practice grows out of collective memory, manual labor, and community narratives, with a Czech artist who approaches textile conceptually, presenting it as a means of concealing and revealing. An important source of inspiration for the curatorial framework is the thinking of Silvia Federici, especially her book Re-enchanting the World, as well as the memoir I Was Born Under a Lucky Star by Elena Lacková.

Situating the work of Małgorzata Mirga-Tas within the context of Liberec represents a key aspect of the curatorial concept. The Czech–Polish–German border region has historically been closely tied to the textile industry, whose legacy has fundamentally shaped the local landscape, social structures, and cultural memory. At a time when this tradition is gradually disappearing — factories are closing and technological infrastructures are vanishing — the exhibition opens up space for a new reading of textile as a medium of memory, women’s labor, care, identity, and resistance, as well as of minority experience, to which both artists relate in different ways.

Małgorzata Mirga-Tas

Małgorzata Mirga-Tas (PL) is a Romani visual artist and one of the most prominent figures on the contemporary European art scene. In her work, she draws on collective memory, everyday life, and the cultural identity of the Romani community. Through monumental textile collages composed of found fabrics and garments, she creates complex visual narratives reflecting the history, marginalization, and strength of the Romani experience, often from the perspective of women’s experience and labor.

In 2022, she represented Poland at La Biennale di Venezia, one of the most prestigious global showcases of contemporary art, held regularly since 1895 and often referred to as the “Olympics of the art world.” Her project Re-enchanting the World in the Polish Pavilion marked the first-ever presentation of a Romani artist within a national representation. Mirga-Tas has also participated in major international exhibitions such as Documenta 15 and the upcoming Manifesta 16 in Germany’s Ruhr region. Her work is regularly shown at important exhibitions across Europe, including Kunsthal Charlottenborg in Copenhagen and Kunsthaus Bregenz in Austria, among others. Today, she is regarded as a key voice in contemporary art, significantly contributing to the redefinition of the position of Romani culture in the global artistic context. The artist is a laureate of the prestigious Paszport Polityki Award (2020) and recipient of the international Tajsa Roma Cultural Heritage Prize (2023), awarded by ERIAC.

Sráč Sam

Sráč Sam is an artist and curator whose work openly articulates cultural and social patterns. Her choice of media responds to the needs of the message — purposeful and functional. Drawing, text, architecture, or performative lectures play the same role in her practice as an indefinable organic body containing a network of relationships, a materialized existence embodied in the form of the sam83 gallery, or economic strategies for surviving turbo-capitalism without grants.

She has presented her work, among others, at the Prague City Gallery and at SAVVY Contemporary in Berlin, as well as at the Matter of Art Biennale. Her practice is gradually gaining recognition in a broader international context. She is represented in a number of institutions, including the National Gallery. She also provides long-term support to artists through the sam83 gallery and the cultural quarterly PIŽMO.

Partners of the exhibition: Polish Institute in Prague, Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, Czech State Culture Fund, Premedis Foundation, Teplárna Liberec, a.s., WARMNIS spol. s.r.o.

The exhibition opening will take place on Friday, 16 October at 6:00 PM.