A historic banner from 2020 in our collection

Protest archives consist not only of documents, photographs, or testimonies from participants. Objects associated with social mobilizations are also an important part of them. These material proofs of civic resistance allow us to reconstruct not the course of the protests, also the emotions and values involved.

As a gift from Magda Górecka, we received a historic banner from 2020, used in All-Polish women strike demonstrations against the ruling of the Constitutional Tribunal, cancelling the abortion law, and criminalising abortion itself. The banner was featured in national and international media; today, Kornelia Witkowska and Katarzyna Kordas-Chojnacka carried out its first photographic documentation. During one of the demonstrations, the banner was torn by far-right extremists.

(Photographs: banner documentation – Kornelia Witkowska and Katarzyna Kordas-Chojnacka; press materials from Magda Górecka’s collection.)