Unraveling, the dress of Jadwiga

FOR JADWIGA

My grandmother’s dress hangs in my closet.   Dark Green Silk Organza.

An evening gown.  A dress from another era.  1935.  A relic.

The dress has traveled across steppes, deserts, and an ocean.  Through internment  and war.  In a suitcase.

I wish my grandmother’s story was  embroidered on the dress for my fingers to decipher.    Instead, I find holes, mold, threads. 

The garment remains fragile with time and travel, pregnant with dreams and untold stories.  Unraveling.

A legacy of a forgotten time.   A legacy of loss and displacement.  A remnant.             

My grandmother’s dress hangs in my closet (unraveling)...

2009, series of 11 archival inkjet prints in varying editions
Project includes video, the dress, and artist’s book, For Jadwiga, Unraveling (2012)

Exhibitions
Ewa Monika Zebrowski: Seven Artist’s Books, McGill University, Montréal, Québec, 2015
La Beauté du Geste, Musée d’art Contemporain de Montréal, Québec, 2014
Les Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie en Gaspésie, Marsoui, Québec, 2012
Art Mûr, Montréal, Québec, 2009
It’s Still Life, Rayko Photo Center, San Francisco, California, 2009

Collections
Musée d’art Contemporain de Montréal

Press
Ewa Monika Zebrowski: Portfolio (Unraveling, the dress of Jadwiga), L’Oeil de la Photographie, 8 August 2020
Ewa Zebrowski: La vie en robe by Bernard Lévy, Vie des Arts, vol. 52, no. 213 (Winter 2008-09), pp. 45-47

Interviews
Les Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie en Gaspésie, Marsoui, Québec, 2012

Awards
Grand Prize - Cultural Event, Prix Lux, 2009
Grand Prize - Photobook, Prix Lux, 2009