“Let the Sirens Roar”: The Women’s Protests in Poland and the Artistic Response to the Backlash
“Let the Sirens Roar”: The Women’s Protests in Poland and the Artistic Response to the Backlash

Summary/Abstract: The ruling of the Constitutional Tribunal of 22 October 2020, which tightened the restrictions on reproductive rights in Poland and was adopted in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, sparked strong social opposition and massive demonstrations. The article focuses on artistic works accompanying these protests, providing a kind of visual commentary to them or, in other words, their visual “framework”. The discussion refers to the most characteristic iconographic materials, mainly posters, uploaded and shared by (mostly young) artists on their profiles on popular social media and specially created websites (such as Graphic Emergency). The content of this artistic “production” often refers to important moments in the recent history of Poland (the Solidarity movement), traditional symbols, and the imaginational sphere; however, to some extent, it also refers to the countercultural revolution of the late 1960s, especially to L’Atelier Populaire, established by students of Académie des Beaux Arts in Paris. The article proposes that the discussed posters be interpreted as a generational counterreply to the “backlash”, understood in accordance with the meaning given to that word by Susan Faludi in her classic 1991 study.

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