Monika Mamzeta
Lebensborn
FSP ING 0289
The title of the work refers to the name of the “Source of Life” Care Association (Lebensborn eingetragener Verein)—an organization founded on Himmler’s orders in 1935 that formed a pillar of the Third Reich’s eugenics policy. As part of a multi‑year program of “breeding a Nordic race of superhumans,” selected German women and men from the ranks of the SS conceived at least 11,000 children. The installation consists of a cast of a Barbie doll enlarged to adult human scale, along with a film placed inside its abdomen in which we can observe the process of its production. The artist points out that the ideal of femininity embodied by a blue‑eyed blonde with 90 × 60 × 90 proportions, on the one hand, appears absurd when translated to a human scale, and on the other hand is not far removed from the Nazi fantasy of the Aryan superman. Although today the methods have become more subtle, women’s bodies continue to be objects of repression and conditioning.
Monika Mamzeta
b. 1972
A graduate of the Faculty of Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and of the Faculty of Law at the University of Warsaw. She holds a PhD in Fine Arts and teaches at the Faculties of Design and Media Art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. Her real name is Monika Zielińska. In her work, she combines the experience of a visual artist with many years of professional practice in the field of intellectual property law. Her artistic practice includes sculpture, installations, photography, video, drawing, and performative actions, in which she explores the theme of the female body and self-portrait as a site of symbolic play. Winner of the Grand Prize of the ING Polish Art Foundation as part of Warsaw Gallery Weekend 2025. She lives and works in Warsaw.
b. 1972