Petja Ivanova
Born in Shumen, Bulgaria and based in Berlin, Petja graduated from the University of Arts Berlin in the class for Computational Art/Generative Art in 2015. In her trans-disciplinary practice she combines archaeology, biology, physics, computation and the poetic in order to promote the ‘poetic method’ as a counterweight to the socially dominating ‘scientific method’, understanding this practice in non-linear relation with Fluxus & Avantgarde. She runs Studio for Poetic Futures and Speculative Ecologies out of a little caravan in Berlin. Very early in her artistic work with electronics and sensors she began to include mythological approaches, the magical and non-quantifiable to analyses these connections in terms of deep time of media/technology. Being a bit frustrated by the simple causalities in quantification she turned to overcoming the conceptual divide of what is natural and what is technological by working with crystals and electronic circuits and latero n also with plants, microorganisms and now insects and bacteria.
Petja Ivanova wants to dismantle patriarchal ideologies through art & design. Therefore, she works with innovative technologies from a feminist technoscience perspective. In her latest work series 'meek is the warrior' she looks at exoskeletons of insects and how they have inspired and supported the design of armour and war gear, stemming from a desire for protection and separation within our cultures of domination. Insect exoskeletons are consist of chitin, as the second most abundant material on this planet, right after cellulose, chitin is used in sustainable design practices as a bioplastic and also has been discovered in medical innovations, its derivate chitosan being used for wound healing. Petja Ivanova builds suits inspired by knights’ armour out of this wound healing material which is extracted from fermented broken insect 'shells'. Rendering the broken shell equally valuable like its counterpart for protection, this artistic practice inverts the function of the exoskeleton as one for separation into one of connection as in its wound healing process the insect body and the human cells grow together, healed.
Thinking of you, 2021.
Thinking of you. 2021, Courtesy of the artist
The artwork is an interactive e-textile and fountain piece that celebrates emotional expression through bodily fluids. It is a series of pants with moisture sensors that trigger the flow of water from a nearby table fountain. The private wetness of the wearer's crotch is expressed in the flow of water from a decorative fountain - a romantic expression of possible longing or thoughts of someone present or absent.
Edition of 3 e-textile pants and 3 fountains bespoke electronics, 3D printing, fabric and embroidery. (2021)
Courtesy Art Claims Impulse
Shedding Skin #2 Vulnerability and Connection. 2020.
Cast of a torso, with chitin-soaked bandages inscribed with lines of plastic.
Shedding Skin & Meek Is The Warrior are work series around dismantling cultural narratives in support of patriarchy. The sculptures imitating armour wear are made of Chitosan-based wound healing bandages that solidify as bio-polymers (plastic). Chitin, the second most abundant bio-polymer after Cellulose can be found in the exoskeletons of insects and crustaceans. The exoskeletons that have inspired armour and robotics, are used in this case in their broken down form, when outgrown, when shed or broken, one new study shows that they can be fermented into Chitin and Chitosan. Medical innovations pick up on one of the oldest technologies, fermentation for wound grafting or intravenous drug delivery based on Chitosan. The title Shedding Skin refers to transformative processes, a metaphor for change and outgrowing old habits, urging society to revisit beliefs that need to be outgrown, such as the histories and definitions of technology, the social status of vulnerability and our interconnectedness with the environment and how much we need to rely on other species. The sculptures are inscribed with quotes about cultures of domination taken from bell hooks feminist publication on love ethics All About Love.
Courtesy Art Claims Impulse
The Artwork is available in the ACI-Shop
Courtesy Art Claims Impulse
Shedding Skin#1- Fear and Obedience
Meek as a warrior
Courtesy Art Claims Impulse
Petja Ivanova - I trace the cracks in it.
Courtesy Art Claims Impulse
Petja Ivanova - Nothing can protect you
Courtesy Art Claims Impulse
Petja Ivanova - Skin of a warrior
Courtesy Art Claims Impulse
Petja Ivanova - Meek is the warrior - heeling and growth.
Courtesy of the artist
meek is the warrior
your skin might be soft
but you’ ve grown a shell underneath serving you no thing
definitely not connecting
i'm tracing the cracks in it
to let in
sink in my words
that become the scar of
your new memories
let me scar your portals
i'll move thru
negativity attracting me
until we grow to be
another you
Body Add Ons
Courtesy of the artist
Collaboration with Fashion Designer Julia Bajanova.
Tools to practice incorporating the ‘other’ non-human and abject matters
Objects/ performance props
Styrofoam, mealworms, élastique, needle
2018
approx. 20x20cm
Courtesy of the artist
memory trainers for admitting abject matter and practicing
co-living with the other
>> training for slow and gradual embodiment of the other.
Courtesy of the artist
<< TOOLS & TRANSFORMATIONS > >
transformation through ‚food‘ - more than human bodies v1
Performance / Make-up
2018
Mask made of styrofoam and mealworms that live in styrofoam, part of the performance 'Transformat5ions
Tools for practicing living with and becoming the ‘other’ - more than human transformations.
Microalgae Lamp
Courtesy of the artist
i-Pet
This object includes bioluminescent micro-algae that glow to your heart beat which is measured through an included heart rate monitor for the user to interact through touching the object.
Sculpture 15cmx40cm
Concrete, brass, glass, microcontroller, heart beat sensor, micro algea
2015
Time Objects
Courtesy of the artist
Sculpture and Photograph
electronic circuit board and Aluminium crystals
20x20cm
silver-gelatine print dimensons variable (70cmx100cm)
2011-2017 Petja Ivanova
Courtesy of the artist
A fabulation of future tech fossils, the work series ‘time objects’ refers to different concepts and durations of
time. the time precision in technological objects in combination with the concept of emergence and a longue durée of the
formation of crystals. These are crystalized electronic waste objects, the electronic waste found on the street in my neighbourhood
in Weser Strasse in Berlin, taken to my studio, immersed into different chemical solutions and just waiting to have the crystals emerge,
the geometry combine. not being responsible for the creation of the object/artwork itself but having the natural process in its own time
take care of it. Who knows, maybe in hundreds of years from now those objects will be found in the environment, as crystals are also
part of electronic circuits, the elementsare in the matter, they could keep on growing.
Courtesy of the artist
Sculpture and Photograph
radio antenna and aluminium crystals, macbook charger and
aluminium cristals, 10x80cm & 20x20cm
silver-gelatine print dimensons variable (70cmx100cm)
2011-2017 Petja Ivanova
Talks
Fermenting Feminism, Medical Museum Copenhagen, Copenhagen
October 2018 — October 2018
Fermentation of Insect Bodies and Social Healing
Radical Relevances, Aalto Unversity Helsinki, Helsinki
May 2021 — May 2021
Panel Hybrid Ontologies: ‘The becoming of Styroworm - food for thought on how to respond’
Education
Master of Arts, University of Arts Berlin, Berlin
April 2011 — July 2015
Master of Arts in Computational Art/Generative Art
Teaching
Experimenting with Bio-Materials, Hamburg College of Applied Sciences
September 2020 — March 2021
The Cultural History of Tarot and the Science of Magic, Hamburg College of Applied Arts
April 2021 — July 2021
Speculative Design, Linnaeus University Växjö
March 2021 — April 2021
2009-2011 VISUELLE KOMMUNIKATION UNIVERSITÄT DER KÜNSTE BERLIN
2011-2015 Computational Art/Generative Art bei Joachim Sauter und Alberto DeCampo Universität der Künste, mit Auszeichnung bestanden
2016 Meisterschülerin bei Nina Fischer, UdK Berlin
Stipendien/Residencies
03/2014-10/2014
Promos Stipendium des DAAD & der Universität der Künste für künstlerische Vorhaben im Ausland
10/2015-06/2016
Stiftung Brandenburger Tor, Stipendium Max, Artists in Residency an Berliner Schulen
10/2015-12/2015
Stiftung Künstlerdorf Schöppingen, Kunst&Wissenschaft Stipendium
Publikationen
Allah's Automaten, ZKM Karlsruhe (2015)
Katalog zum Stipendienprogramm Max, Artists in Residency an Berliner Schulen (2017)
Essay Publikation in Metamorfosa, Arts, Science & Technology Journal (2018)
Selected Exhibtions
Echo-Chambers , 3hd Festival 2020, Berlin
October 2020 — October 2020
Installation with Cammack Lindsay 'Love Spits Revolting'
The event exhibition features a multi-sensory and interdisciplinary show spanning the four
different rings circling the Prenzlauer Berg’s water tower, where a limited number of audience
members can walk through and experience this crossover of visual arts, storytelling, and
post-club sounds in the cyclic structure of the space, mirroring the cyclic nature of life, cultural
movements and social progress.
On Frail Ground, Art Claims Impulse, Berlin
May 2020 — May 2020
Duo Show with Mihai Grecu curated by Art Claims Impulse
Installation and wearables 'Second Skin- transforming and healing with the Other'
The undertone inherent in the artworks could be described as the 'generation of a basic
existential feeling'; a sense of fragility, of impending collapse. Rigid monuments of an ideology
expressed in cement are attacked by natural forces and show their last absurd steadfastness.
Barren surfaces show fragile luminous traces of human existence. Delicate derma structures
are clothed and protected by a polysaccharide material inherent to fungi, arthropods, and
mollusks, which leads to the emergence of a new hybrid. Are we at the beginning of a changing
materialism and repositioning in the Anthropocene?
02/2020
Traces, Group Exhibiton Projektraum Schaufenster
Sculptures/Wearables >>Meek is the warrior<<, Berlin
07/2019
V2 Lab for Unstable Media, Rotterdam
Exhibition Graceful Extinction, Skulptures >>Untitled Time Objects<<
06/2019
Sympoiesis, Group Exhibition, SVA New York
05/2019
Panke Gallery, Group Exhibition, Berlin
10/18
Field Notes, Group Exhibition State Studio Gallery
Performance >>Styroworm<<, Berlin