To Shine in Others’ Shadow

The title of the work is taken from Reiner Kunze’s poem ‘Dziewięćsił’ in Ryszard Krynicki’s translation (meaning ‘silver thistle’, orignally titled in German: ’Silberdistel’).
Between 2021 and 2022, the Wrocław City Museum carried out two historical series of activities entitled ‘30Wrocławianek’ (‘30 Wrocław Women’), on the initiative of its spokesperson, Ewa Pluta. These were dedicated to women associated with Wrocław prior to 1945, who were little known or entirely absent from historical discourse.

In the The Bourgeois Hall of the Old Town Hall, there is a gallery entitled ‘Great Wrocławians’ – thirty classical busts, carved from Silesian marble. Most of them depict men. There are only three women. The work is a symbolic addition to the gallery, featuring women whom history has so far ignored and who usually lived in the shadow of their husbands, fathers and sons. Today, they are regaining visibility.

The work consists of thirty elements in the form of glass knots placed on a marble slab. A knot on a short length of string symbolises incomplete, teared, undocumented stories. It is also a symbol of immortality. In the past, tying a knot, for example on the corner of a handkerchief, signified the need to remember something (not forget).