Alexandria

In 2005, three out of seven lightboxes from the Dziewice series (2005) made by Marta Deskur (born in 1962) were added to the collection of the National Museum in Szczecin. The series comprises digitally altered photographs of naked, pregnant women who participated in the project at her invitation. At the final stage of her work, the artist replaced the faces of the photographed women with her own picture. By doing so, she transformed the depicted characters into digital hybrids, entities that could not exist in the real world. This, however, is not the only cognitive dissonance that appears in Deskur's work. The eponymous virgins are – from the artist’s point of view – women in advanced pregnancy. This surprising paradox, which belongs to the sphere of faith in the Western cultural circles, is illustrated by the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. Going with intriguing references to Christian tradition and creatively altering its motifs and symbols, motifs and symbols is one of the characteristic features of Deskur’s works. Like in the case of Dziewice, Christian symbolism is never an end in itself – it serves the purpose of observing the dynamically changing contemporary reality – today's ideas, values and models of interpersonal relations. Thus, in Dziewice, in which the artist obviously refers to the biblical tradition, reveal their meanings only in the context of current reflection on the social status of women, as well as cultural meanings associated with virginity.

Magdalena Lewoc