Interdisciplinary artist, curator and researcher based in Berlin. Her artistic work centers on the method of field research, the collective approach and feminist practice. By locating places, events, and people that remain hidden from general view, Nika seeks to liberate knowledge from a one-dimensional narrative and create exchange. Born and raised in Russia, she spent her childhood between the urban space of St. Petersburg and the rural Komi region, which influenced her artistic visions and inspired her to explore between rural and urban spaces. Currently at the stage of learnings the woman's cultivation practices rural and urban spaces. Last few years she held a series of discussions and exhibitions shaping questions between rural und urban.
ACADEMIC EDUCATION
Art in Context, Master of Arts
from 2018 to 2021; University of the Arts, Berlin
Thesis: "Kokvitskaya Gora - the process of standing for community rights''. Supervisor: Julia Grosse
Media Studies, Semester Abroad
from 2016 to 2017; Università degli studi Suor Orsola Benincasa, Naples
Media Cultural Studies, Slavic Studies, Bachelor of Arts
from 2015 to 2017; University of Cologne, Cologne
Thesis: "The role of visual art in the 'Ballets Russes' by Sergei Djagilew." Supervisor: Peter W.Marx
Journalism, Bachelor Diploma
from 2013 to 2015; State University of Technology and Design, Saint Petersburg
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2022 / Sensing the city - sense of the city / O.R.i , Berlin; Zwitschermaschine Berlin; Biblioteca de Marvila, Lisbon
2021 / Rundgang Preview / Haus der Statistik, Berlin
2020 / Virtueller Rundgang / eigenart, Berlin (digital)
2018 / How can we keep the chaos? / Kulturzentrum Acud, Berlin
2021 / Kunst und Buch: 1921-2021-2121 / Deutsche Kunstverlag, Kommunale Galerie, Berlin
2019 / 40 Jahre Kunst im Kontext / NGBK, Berlin
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
2021 / Russian Avant-Garde and the rural spaces / eigenart
2021 / Kokvitskaya Gora: the progress of standing for community rights / Rundgang Preview
2021 / Die digitale Transformation von “eigenart” / eigenart
2020 / Mit Kunst Planeten retten / eigenart
2020 / Was die Kunst zum Klimawandel zu sagen hat / eigenart
2020 / The story of a protest by #existracismUdK / eigenart
2020 / Artists fight for a cultural restitution / eigenart
2013 / Deutsche Presse in St. Petersburg / Deutsche Gesellschaft e.V.
2023 / women's cultivation practice / collaborative zine
The art publication is the result of observing potato cultivation practices in a Komi village. The artist and my mother, Angelika Van-In, made graphic sketches by talking to her neighbours. Based on their stories, together we compiled a series of memories of the villagers about the potato cultivation practices. This zine was developed as part of a series of field studies on women's cultivation practices in the village environment, becoming a collaborative self-publishing project between mother and daughter.
In collaboration with an artist: Anzhelika Van-In
Publishers: Nika Grigorian, Nickolas Daniel da Silva
2022 / Group project / Event series
In the series of events “zu Community basierter Kunst”, moderators talk to artists who develop practices outside of institutional spaces, which thereby act as community-building. Which methods lead to different forms of participation, sharing and knowledge transfer? What kinds of resources do we need to create a community? Which existing spaces and localities can be integrated? How are they thus transformed? Can we speak of a collectivity in such processes? Is the collectivity always singular?
The event series is organised by the curatorial working group: Nika Grigorian, Agnieszka Kilian and Marina Naprushkina.
2022 / Group project / Exhibition
The exhibition project sensing the city - sense of the city aimed to explore individual sensations in urban space. It took place simultaneously in Berlin and Lisbon in three spaces: O.R.i (Berlin), Zwitschermaschine (Berlin) and Biblioteca de Marvila (Lisbon). We developed this cross-disciplinary platform for urban art that showed works in different forms and different media of 59 artists. The exhibition was accompanied by a wide range of workshops and other participatory formats.
Curatorial Team: Anna Sofia Meyer, Nika Grigorian, Catarina Marcos, Christian Hörner, Helena Doppelbauer.
2020-2021 / Community projekts / Art book
The manifesto proposal emerged from my research Kokvitskaya Gora - the process of standing for community rights. The work focuses on the Komi community of Kokvitskaya Gora.After the field research of the place, I decided to offer the residents a manifesto to make a public statement demanding improvements in the quality of life for the people of Kokvitskaya Gora. By choosing this artistic form, I hope to perceive the text not as the physical result of my scientific activity, but as a process. The book is a collaborative work of local residents and artists.
*Kokvitskaya Gora is located on the left bank of the Vychegda River. This is not a registered name, it is what the local population calls the area of the rural settlement of Kozhmudor in the Ust-Vym district of the Komi Republic, Russia.
2020 - 2021 / Group project / the student magazine of the Berlin University of the Arts
In 2020, I digitised the University of the Arts' student magazine "eigenart". With this, I created a community platform to open up artistic discussions and take them beyond the academic framework. The new format allowed, among other things, the presentation of artistic media such as video, audio and media art. Today, as part of the UdK, the magazine continues to develop both digitally and in print, under the leadership of the team I founded.