An art collective has emerged from the shadow of Poland’s increasingly fractured political landscape. Zubrzyce—Polish for a female bison, a national symbol—is a group of anonymous artists who wear bison masks at demonstrations in a nod to the mask-wearing US art collective Guerrilla Girls.
“We have a very conservative government whose politics undermine fundamental women’s rights,” says one of Zubrzyce’s founding members. “We are trying to find a new, strong way to object to this oppression.” The group staged its first protest at the annual feminist Manifa march in Warsaw on 5 March, followed by another in the capital a few days later at the International Women’s Strike. The group plans its first performance abroad in the next few months.
Although street protests in Polish cities last October forced the government to scrap anti-abortion plans, it says it is still pursuing its anti-abortion agenda.