Monika Drożyńska

Lives and works in Poland

Artist statement

I work with language as material. I am interested in the ways words, letters and alphabets carry power, shape identity and become sites of political and social conflict. Hand embroidery is central to my practice. I use it not as decoration, but as a method of writing. Its slowness and physical intimacy stand in contrast to the authority and speed of printed or digital language. Words pass through fabric and the body, becoming unstable, distorted and vulnerable. My works often begin with language found in public space: political statements, graffiti, advertising, overheard conversations, linguistic mistakes, forbidden letters and words displaced through migration. I collect these fragments and move them into textiles, installations and interventions in public space. I am particularly interested in moments when language becomes a territory of control or resistance. Through embroidery, I examine how language can exclude, discipline and wound, but also how it can be appropriated, transformed and used to create new forms of belonging.

Artwork