Hammers for Killing Women

Hammers for Killing Women

The objects were created in a process between 2023 and 2025 through collecting and selectively acquiring elements, steel fragments, hammer heads, screws, and rods – all recycled and with visible signs of use. The assemblages, each with an individual shape, were composed and created independently; their appearance is definitely not a coincidence.

The work conceptually addresses physical violence against women, ambiguously alluding to the notorious story of a serial killer. For eight years, he remained unaccounted for. He attacked women—young, beautiful, going to or from work. He instilled fear and terror, primarily among the residents of the then Gdańsk Voivodeship. He attacked from behind, with a hammer, delivering a series of blows to the head. The victim had no chance of survival. The Pomeranian scorpion, one of the most dangerous criminals in Polish criminal history. Convicted of the murders of nine women and 11 attempted murders, he committed a total of 38 attacks on women, as well as property theft, burglary, fraud, and slander. He was sentenced to death in 1987, the penultimate execution in Poland before the introduction of the moratorium.

At the turn of 2023/2024, I created a solo exhibition at the Gdańsk City Museum entitled: MODUS OPERANDI. 75 STROKES. Topography of crime scenes committed by a single perpetrator in Pomerania between 1977 and 1983, dedicated to the perpetrator's victims, where the above-mentioned objects, among others, existed in fragments (a dozen or so pieces).