This article presents Bartosz Jakubowski’s art project „Haften” (2022), a multimedia exhibition consisting of portraits of people who self-identify across a spectrum of non-heteronormativity, stretched on canvas
and partially covered with embroidery. The project can be interpreted in the context of other works, through textiles that both relate to the exclusion and existence of non-heteronormative people in Poland
(Daniel Rycharski, „Strachy” [Fears], 2019), but also use “needlework” to create community and oppositional actions in the world. Referring to two already classic anthologies on the subject of the mask („Masks”,
1986; „Białe maski/szare twarze. Ciało, pamięć, performatywność w perspektywie postzależnościowej” [White Masks/Gray Faces. Body, Memory, and Performativity from a Post-Dependence Perspective], 2015), this essay – whose style is “a little frayed” so as to emphasize the connection between textiles and text – points out that although in Jakubowski’s project, the bodies are “dressed” in embroidery (the type of embroidery corresponds to the region from which the protagonists of the works come), participation in the project is an act of courage, while the performative act is intertwined with social impact. Keywords: textile art, queer art, political art, minority stress, teens’ suicides