On the easternmost outskirts of Kraków, the modern suburb of Nowa Huta serves as a reminder of what could have been. Conceived in 1949 and intended to embody an urban proletarian ideal, the reality is that of an unfinished post-WW2 utopia, inextricable from its Communist past. In her new exhibition Siukar Manusia – translated as great, or wonderful people – at Frith Street Gallery, Małgorzata Mirga-Tas depicts ten representatives of the first generation of Nowa Huta’s Romani inhabitants. Her intimate series of textile portraits fashion an affirmative iconography of marginalised Roma communities that advocate that this is a place made greater by the sum of its parts.
