Rhizomatic Sisterhoods: Fiber, Folk, and the Decolonial Feminine in Contemporary Art

• In Event: Cosmologies, Affects, Allyships: Decolonial Resonances in Polish Contemporary Art

Abstract

This paper explores the works of Julia Woronowicz, Katerina Janeckova Walsche, Maria Magdalena Campos-Pons, Nandipha Mntambo, Liliana Zeic, and Katarzyna Perlak, whose practices unravel and reweave narratives of matriarchy, decoloniality, and queer folk traditions, building transversal solidarities across the Global South and postsocialist landscapes. Through fiber, embodiment, and storytelling, these artists create a female microcosm—a space of interconnectedness where personal and collective histories entangle like threads in a tapestry.
Drawing from Édouard Glissant’s rhizomatic thinking, this panel examines how these artists practice sisterhood, detangling the knots of history to reimagine heritage (“her-itage”) in times of transformation. Fiber—whether literal or metaphorical—serves as a medium of healing, a conduit for indigenous knowledge, and a means of resistance against imposed borders, both physical and epistemic. Their work embraces fluid identities and multitudes, dissolving rigid binaries of gender, nation, and artistic tradition.
Through folk practices, queerness, and embodied ritual, these artists reclaim and redefine connection—to land, to ancestors, to each other. By enacting decolonial feminist imaginaries, they create networks of care, matriarchal systems in the making, and new possibilities for belonging in a world still shaped by colonial and patriarchal legacies.

Author

• Julia Stachura, Adam Mickiewicz U (Poland)