The portraits of Ainu women were created as part of the Polish-Japanese project ONNA Speaks. After many meetings and online conversations with Ainu women, Professor Hiroshi Maruyama and Polish artists, I managed to get to know them better. To make the portraits, I used the traditions of the Ainu people. According to this tradition, in the center of each house there was a hearth around which the life of the Ainu was centered. Using the ash from the hearth, Ainu women made their distinctive tattoos around their mouths.
Even though it was November, I went to the countryside for two weeks and started working surrounded by nature and silence. To do this, I collected ash from the stove that heated my studio. Then I rubbed the ash into a sheet of paper and started drawing portraits of Yoshiko, Kyoko, Ryoko, Kimiko, Tsugumi.
