Welcome back to our podcast. Today, we continue our conversation with⁠ Katerina Gribkoff⁠, where we delve into Katerina's curatorial practice, her insights on sustainable approaches to art-making, and how she sees art as a tool for change in our rapidly changing world.

Bio

Katerina Gribkoff is a visual artist based in western Ireland. In 2017, she received a BFA in Drawing from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. She is currently a PhD candidate at the Burren College of Art and the University of Galway. Her research aims to find alternative, liveable ways of making and creating in tandem with growing systems, and directly links her studio practice with a dye and pigment garden in the Burren.

Her work includes foraging and growing to make dyes and inks, biodegradable soft sculptures, photography, and plant support systems. Her research moves through contemporary eco-critical themes, systems thinking (permaculture) and new materialist studies.

WINDOWS

This series began with the notion of windows as symbols for the framing of nature to fit culture: how humans build barriers between ourselves, our interior spaces, and the exterior world, only to selectively import natural elements back into our daily existences. Installing the windows outside, against a wall of brush or tree, stretches these themes, troubling distinctions between the inside and the outside. Each piece is biodegradable. 

Arched Window (2021) — 1m x 1.8m x 5cm — up-cycled cotton sheets — dyed with madder, hazel, avocado, quebracho rojo — stuffed with wool, paper, bark

Window I & Window II (2020) — 0.6m x 0.4m x 5cm — up-cycled cotton sheets — dyed with blackberry, hazel, iron — stuffed with wool, paper, bark

Images courtesy of Katerina Gribkoff.