Q&A with Czesława Wojtkowski
Czesława Wojtkowskiis a multidisciplinary artist working primarily with digital collage and weaving, but her overall practice encompasses a variety of digital and fiber art making processes. Utilizing a diverse range of archives, from their own antique print media collection to ‘90s Japanese fashion magazines to Google Earth, Wotjkowski explores trauma, gender dysphoria, and hysteria, as well as more existential themes such as rural decay, nostalgia, and the impermanence of memory.
Briefly describe your thesis project. What themes are you exploring, and in what mediums/with what materials?
My project explores femmephobia against trans women and non-binary people. For trans women, there is an expectation of normative femininity — basically being indistinguishable from a cisgender woman, but this standard is completely incomprehensible and indefinable even by transphobes. Even the fishiest of the fish experience terrible violence for failing to be “enough.”
As for nonbinary people, we are expected to reject femininity, otherwise our gender is invalid. There is an expectation of us to be androgynous, which really means masculine. In a celebration of non-normative femininity, I have made three 45” x 70” velvet banners embellished with intricate beadwork. Atop these, I have projected two videos, one of myself, and one of a fictional muse of mine, Mighty Lady. All of these images are of feminine individuals, which struck me as representing uncanny, disinterested, or scary femininities. The beadwork encourages close looking, which literally requires them to examine constructed femininity and forces a different perspective.
What do you hope someone feels when they experience your work?
I want queer people, especially trans women and non-binary femmes, to relate to the work and feel seen. I hope cisgender allies think it’s beautiful and start developing admiration for LGBTQIA+ femmes. I hope TERFs, conservatives, and misogynists feel offended by it, or they totally misunderstand it — they’re the butt of the joke.
Czesława Wojtkowski in their studio. (Photo: Caitlin Custer)
Did you always know this would be your final project? When or how did you figure it out?
In a general sense, I have known since early fall that my work would consist of three velvet banners and overlapping videos. The videos have remained the same, but the photographic content of the banners has changed. I went through so many ideas which I eventually discarded — cross-stitched frames, tapestry stitching on the velvet, bowls of USB drives — before settling on the work’s final form in mid-March.
What has been surprising as you’ve worked on this project?
I am actually quite surprised at how much I treasure these photographs now. I thought I already knew them; after all, I only chose these images because I felt moved by them. But now, looking at them hour after hour, holding them in my hands, carefully embellishing them, it feels like they are part of my soul.
Why did you choose to go to graduate school at WashU? It has been my goal for many years to attend WashU because of its incredible reputation. I also wanted to go to a prestigious graduate program to show up all my haters, enemies, and everyone who never believed in me.
