Addressing the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź in 1998, Abakanowicz emphasised the distinctly Polish origins of her oeuvre as: ‘The expression of art saturated with history, deformed by modernity, diverging from the direction of art in the free world. Perhaps the experience of the crowd, waiting passively in line, but ready to trample, destroy or adore on command like a headless creature, became the core of my analysis.’
In fulfilment of this idea, she further reoriented her work, substituting textile for cast iron or bronze-cast figurative environments, such as Agora (Chicago, 2006) and Unrecognised (Poznan, 2002) – dystopian crowds of more than 100 headless torsos, both permanently installed outdoors.