Bonnefanten presents a spectacular pop-up pavilion at Cultura Nova with artworks by Polish Roma artist Małgorzata Mirga-Tas!

The impressive colorful tapestries celebrate her culture and tell stories about important women in the Netherlands and Poland. Come to the pop-up museum to see art, sit in a beach chair, read, do crafts and more!

Practical information

The Bonnefanten Pop-up museum is open every day and free to all! The opening hours are:

• Fri 30 August: 21.00h-24.00h
• Sat 31 august + Sat 7 september + Sun 1 + Wed 4 september: 14.00h-22.00h
• Mon 2 + Tue 3 + Thu 5 + Fri 6 september: 17:00h-22.00h
• Sun 8 september: 12.00h-17.00h

Małgorzata Mirga-Tas

The Bonnefanten Pop-up museum displays sensational tapestries by Polish artist Małgorzata Mirga-Tas. The meters-high works portray extraordinary women from the Netherlands and her community in Poland. Women who step off the beaten path and mean a lot to their community. They are artists, activists, teachers. They lovingly hold their community together and help it move forward. But their soft power often remains invisible and missing from history books.

Mirga-Tas gives these women the stage they deserve. For thousands of years, portraits have been used to immortalize people and show how important they are. Historically, women have been portrayed less than men. Women's role in society was considered unimportant, and many influential women never made it into the history books. We have forgotten about them.
Mirga-Tas wants to draw attention to women around her, adding to history with untold stories.

The portraits are collages of fabric. Mirga-Tas herself says she sculpts with fabric. On large canvases, she combines pieces of fabric with drawings and paintings. She uses clothing, sheets, curtains and other household fabrics that she gets or buys from her immediate surroundings. The fabrics are lived-in, and carry memories within them. The creation of these huge works takes a long time and is a collaborative process, in which she gets help from (mostly female) family members and neighbors. Mirga-Tas makes the artworks with a few seamstresses with great expertise. The very act of making together and learning from each other and gaining inspiration gives the work extra meaning.

Mirga-Tas is a Polish artist who belongs to the Roma people. This is a transnational people that has no defined territory and is spread over large parts of the world. It is one of the largest and arguably most discriminated against minorities in Europe. Her art reflects on Roma identity from a feminist perspective. Through her work, she combats the dominant, negative and stereotypical image of the Roma people created for centuries almost exclusively by non-Roma. She shows us an intimate and authentic insight into the Roma community.

Create your own hero

Entirely in the style of Mirga-Tas, you can create a portrait of your female hero every day the pop-up museum is open. Using needle, thread and textile, you will make one of the female heroes come to life on a postcard. On weekends, you can attend this workshop between 14:00 and 17:00, led by an expert! Learn sewing and embroidery techniques, listen to stories about the artist and take home your own creation or send it to your own hero!