She invariably used natural materials in her artworks, weaving with sisal, wool and horsehair, because she saw ‘fibre as the basic element constructing the organic world on our planet’. It is perhaps this that prompted her description of her installations as ‘environments’. It is also through this that Abakanowicz introduces the connection between her creations and the viewer, explaining that ‘it is from fibre that all the living organisms are built, the tissue of plants, leaves and ourselves’.