I am strong because… | the opening of Marta Frej’s exhibition

The starting point for Marta Frej’s series of paintings was to invite women to complete the sentence “I am strong because…” and to send a photo, which was cartoonishly processed by the artist and juxtaposed with the text

The artist herself says about the exhibition

I did not expect many times

I didn’t expect that the sentence I proposed should read “I am strong, despite the fact that…”.

I didn’t expect that an email inbox specially set up for this purpose, filled with more than a thousand emails and swelling with new ones all the time, would be dreaming and shouting to me with stories incredibly sad, often horrifying, but after all, recognized by their protagonists as empowering

I didn’t expect to get so many testimonies of violence against women

I did not expect that the drawings I posted online would stir up such controversy Hundreds of comments, often merciless, mostly by women “What’s there to brag about?” is the mildest form. Finding strength in oneself and saying it was treated as provocation, “flaunting”, “exalting”, and often even an attack, on the basis of: the sentence “I’m strong because I don’t want to have children and I’m not afraid to talk about it” was read by many women “if you want to have children, you’re weak”.

I did not expect that reading hundreds of comments, discussions that sometimes drag on for months, would be so difficult and that I would be so afraid of the mental condition of my heroines.

I did not expect that I would get so many thanks from women who found that this simple exercise gave them a lot and repeat it regularly because it does them good

I didn’t expect to get shivers when I meet my heroines in real life during exhibitions

I didn’t expect that the project would also have a socio-political context, as there would be characters talking about specific current issues, such as the teachers’ strike, the debate around LGBT, or the sexual crimes of priests

I didn’t expect to feel such strength when I stood in front of all these portraits and understood what it was all about Only I can see my strength, name it and use it.

Finally, I did not expect that people of other genders would claim parity :

It looks like I will be drawing for many more years….

Marta Frej

Visual artist, illustrator, president of the Kulturoholism Foundation. She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Lodz. She participated in many group exhibitions and had about 50 solo exhibitions.

She is the winner of the 2015 Equality Glasses Award, awarded by the Izabela Jaruga-Nowacka Foundation, in the category of women’s rights and counteracting gender discrimination for herartistic work committed to defending women’s rights and gender equality Co-author of the book “Memes and Graphs” with Agnieszka Graff, author of the herstory comic book “Dromaders”, and the book “150 Faces of Marta Frej”.

The most famous works are paintings with captions of a feminist nature, in which there are sociological premises They illustrate the contemporary life of women in Poland The works, which have taken the form of paintings, have been exhibited in various galleries throughout Poland

The exhibition is open from Monday to Friday from 8:00 am to 8:00 pm and on Saturday from 9:00 am to 1:00 pm, as well as during events organized by the Provincial Center for Cultural Animation

The event is held as part of the Festival of Forgotten Cultures: Female Builders Herstories of Courageous Womenco-financed from funds of the Local Government of the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship.

The event is part of the celebration of the Year of Brave Women