Mother Tongue, Woven Skin (2025)
Through her work, Katarzyna Perlak employs a notion of ‘tender crafts’, exploring how crafts, heritage and traditions can be revisited and re-imagined from contemporary feminist, queer and diasporic (migrant) perspectives. She references myths, folklore, dreams, desires and collective memories to question and resist how history is often written and how traditions are represented.
This new, large-scale textile (5.3 x 3.5m) embroidery work is made from bags which the artist’s mother sends her care packages in from Poland to her home in London, UK – it is the artist’s most ambitious textile work to date. Newspaper clippings used to wrap jars and other fragile items are transferred onto the fabric, alongside ‘kitchen wisdoms’ captured through regular conversations with her mum. For Perlak, the work reflects on maternal care, issues of migration and homesickness, and shared political and economic challenges across borders.
Courtesy of the artist, with thanks to Annika Thiems (sewing support) and Rebecca Bellantoni (embroidery support). Supported by Polish Cultural Institute in London.
This new, large-scale textile (5.3 x 3.5m) embroidery work is made from bags which the artist’s mother sends her care packages in from Poland to her home in London, UK – it is the artist’s most ambitious textile work to date. Newspaper clippings used to wrap jars and other fragile items are transferred onto the fabric, alongside ‘kitchen wisdoms’ captured through regular conversations with her mum. For Perlak, the work reflects on maternal care, issues of migration and homesickness, and shared political and economic challenges across borders.
Courtesy of the artist, with thanks to Annika Thiems (sewing support) and Rebecca Bellantoni (embroidery support). Supported by Polish Cultural Institute in London.
