Alimony Hunters

• installation, 2023

The protagonist of this multi-element installation is Sylwia, the artist’s acquaintance and a single mother fighting for years to enforce the alimony awarded by the court for her two children. In response to the ineffectiveness of the police and prosecutors’ actions, Sylwia wrote a letter to the Minister of Justice Zbigniew Ziobro. The letter and the story contained in it became the inspiration for this project. In 2023, the amount of alimony overdue payments in Poland reached PLN 14.1 billion a historical record. It is estimated that there may be up to a million dependent children raised by a single parent in Poland. There is a tacit social acquiescence to non-payment of alimony, and defaulters can often count on the support of relatives and employers, sometimes also the judicial and law enforcement system. Men make up 94% of alimony debtors. An “alimony hunter” is a colloquial term with negative connotations, as women fighting for their due alimony payments are very often met with suspicion and stereotypically perceived as overly demanding.