Iwona DEMKO (1974), CAROLINE - Pillows-CIPUS 2013

Sewn object; polyester filling, bead, llama, ribbon, satin, handle, decorative haberdashery ribbons; 37×38×10 cm
The pillow comes with an author's label

One of the most expressive figures of the Polish art scene. A graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow, where she currently works as a professor at the university. To date, she has participated in more than 200 exhibitions at home and abroad. She is a curator of feminist exhibitions, author of a book about the first student of the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow, Zofia Baltarowicz-Dzielinska, initiator and co-organizer of the "Year of Women of the Academy of Fine Arts" dedicated to 100 years of women's presence in the Cracow art school. She is interested in the herstory and experiences of women - with a particular focus on women artists - considered through the prism of changing social roles throughout history. For many years she has been involved in the affirmation of sexuality and female genitalia. Scholarship holder of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage (2018). Winner of the Maria Anto and Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven Art Prize for supporting the presence and visibility of women in education and culture (2021). She creates objects and sewn textile paintings, installations, site-specific works, videos, and works in the Internet space. Her flagship color, both in life and in art, is pink.

For many years the question bothered me: if there was a cult of the penis, why haven't I heard of a cult of the vagina? In 2008, I decided to look for traces of the vagina cult. At that time I was familiar with the book by science journalist Catherine Blackledge Vagina. Female Sexuality in Cultural History. The book was devoted entirely to the vagina. Among other things, it told of a time when people did not know that a man was needed to conceive a child. The only creator of new life seemed to be a woman, and the gateway through which man came into the world was the vagina, treated by our ancestors with reverence as a symbol of fertility, health and happiness. The vagina and the ability to give birth to a child sanctioned the high position of women in social, political and religious life. The situation changed with the advent of patriarchy and knowledge regarding men's participation in the conception of new life. The vagina was relegated from the sacred to the profane. Pillow-cups are meant to evoke bygone times, to disenchant the female genitalia, to change our negative attitudes full of taboos and shame to an outlook full of affirmation and joy.