Makatka (Every wife’s pride - it’s what she cooks for her husband), 42x65 cm, embroidery with cotton thread, 2020

“The Makatka was embroidered by the artist’s partner Weronika Balcerak but is exhibited under the name of Lukas Bury. This piece is a collaboration between the two artists which reflects on gender imbalance in the Polish society and engages with questions on ownership of artworks when the conceptualisation and the realisation of the piece itself are carried out by different individuals. The piece was shown with Weronika Balcerak’s video Artist’s wife, which unfolds her personal history and its intertwinement with recent Polish history, and what it meant to be a woman in the Polish countryside at a time when the country was opening up to western ideologies. The video work shows the process of the embroidery of a Makatka, a traditional kitchen tapestry originated in Germany and The Netherlands after World War I, which was then adopted by many countries. Makatkas often depict domestic scenes of women committed to fulfil their role of housewives, despite being traditionally embroidered by women they convey values of the patriarchal society.”

Link to the video Artist’s wife by Weronika Balcerak: https://vimeo.com/483999210

Text by Ana Victoria Bruno

Photos: Magda Typiak