Braiding the River

“My friends and I prepared something crazy, funny, beautiful and nice,” said the artist, then 38. “We wanted to make the fight famous.”

Malik’s approach to activism on behalf of the river: the world’s longest braid.

During the decades when the country was part of the USSR, Poland  focused so intensively on developing its industry that the natural world was often overlooked. For the sake of factories, trees were cut down, rivers were dammed, and soil, water, and air became choked with pollutants. Even now, the post-communist government tends to favor industry over ecology. However, a growing number of Polish environmentalists are trying to reclaim the rights of nature.

To create her activist art project, Cecylia Malik stationed herself in Krakow’s Bunkier Sztuki Gallery with multiple yards of fabric. Then she began inviting visitors to help her create her braid. When it was finished, the colorful, collaboratively woven braid unfurled over a total distance of four miles. Malik, along with scientists, other artists, environmentalists, and members of the public helped lay it along the banks of the Bialka.

Authorities scrapped plans to reconstruct the river.