O, Marzanno!

O, Marzanno!
2026 MFA Thesis Exhibition
Stamps Gallery, Ann Arbor MI

Marzanna is the goddess of death, disease and winter in Slavic Mythology. In the annual Polish folk ritual of Topienie Marzanny, an effigy is built, paraded, and drowned in a body of water on the first day of spring. The ritual fulfills multiple cultural functions: to ensure a good harvest, to ward off plagues, and to banish winter. Marzanna holds many “feminized” identities: bride, harbinger of fertility, grim reaper, mother-earth, and old lady winter.

Through building effigies and leading year-round community events that expand the narrative of Marzanna’s lifecycle, I reclaim her myth and foreground the burdens she carries for the wellbeing of others. In revering and holding tenderly the vilified, scapegoated woman, I recognize parts of her in us - and ourselves in her. I imbue her story with the intergenerational legacies of women who possess the power to heal and hold pain. By leaning into the potential for mimetic transfer that an effigy provides, Marzanna offers a gift: the release of our burdens.

Marzaneczko, serce me, gaśnie męka po tobie. (Marzanna, my heart, suffering sent with you.) 2026
Grass, black locust branches, honey locust thorns, twine, birch bark, mushrooms, sumac, rose hips, mountain ash berries, crabapples, milkweed seedpod, black berry branches, bittersweet berries.

Documentation of three community events, playing on 65” TV surrounded by a circle of mulberry tree trunk seating:
The Autumn Rite of Marzanna, 2025
Single channel video, 8:25 min

The Winter Rite of Marzanna, 2025
Single channel video, 7:27 min

The Spring Sacrifice of Marzanna, 2026
Single channel video, 9:41 min

Processional necklace-trees, 2026
Mountain ash and crabapple necklaces made by my mother and I.