Girls
oryginal tittle: “Dziewczynki”
ArtAround, Warsaw, 2025
Curator:
Kinga Szafrankowska
Producer:
Agnieszka Jarosz
Photo:
–
Sculpture:
Moth (2017)
Aluminum
75 x 35 x 41 cm
Girls are supposed to be polite, sweet, nice, and obedient.
They don’t protest, don’t raise their voices, don’t get angry. But the moment one of them begins to feel uncomfortable in this mold, she’ll instantly hear a patronizing “Little girl…” followed by a list of expectations and unspoken prohibitions.
Because the diminutive “little girl” in patriarchal narratives carries an intensely pejorative charge. Spoken with a smirk, it’s meant to belittle us, infantilize, discredit— to put us back “in our place.”
That’s why I asked the Artists to choose works for this exhibition that, in their view, speak to the personal and social consequences of the still-dominant context surrounding the word “little girl.”
Twelve Artists perfectly reflect the symbolic meaning of the number 12: a full circle, completeness, and universal order.
This exhibition speaks of a new/different order, a search for harmony and history that keeps looping back—while continuing to exclude women or confining them to seemingly outdated patterns.
The works on display reveal that something still chafes, that the world remains an inhospitable place for women, that we do not agree to this—and we want to speak about it loudly.
We laughed during the exhibition preparations, saying that we have here both “twelve apostles” and a “dirty dozen.” After all, we are and want to be little girls—but on our own terms. Kinga Szafrankowska
Artists: Agata Zbylut, Mariola Przyjemska, Helena Stiasny, Olga Mokrzycka, Monika Mamzeta, Ida Karkoszka, Viola Głowacka, Ewa Góral, Pola Dwurnik, Monika Drożyńska, Iwona Demko, Izabela Chamczyk
SCULPTURE 
Moth
(2017)
75 x 37 x 41 cm
Photo: Igor Haloszka, Ida Karkoszkae