I’m very inspired by the life growing from the roof of a birch or through the asphalt fungus, which is all that was not envisioned by man when he built playgrounds, hospitals, houses and highways
Anastasia Potemkina is an interdisciplinary artist who works with various media: painting, video, performance art, installation. In her works she explores approaches to the relationship between human and nature. The special interest in biology from early childhood is clearly reflected in the artistic practice, in which she often addresses the world of flora and fauna.
In 2011 she co-founded the interdisciplinary platform Laboratory of Urban Fauna, researching the cultural status of animals and plants, as well as architectural and political consequences of cohabitation between species in the city outside the traditional concepts of ecology.
Participant of Triennale of Russian Contemporary Art, Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, Moscow International Biennale of Young Art. ArtInStyle Award, established by InStyle Russia and the Cosmoscow International Contemporary Art Fair. The nominee of the Kandinsky Prize (2015, 2017). The works are in the collections of the Center of Contemporary Art Winzavod.
For me Anastasia Potemkina's work tastes like nettle, smells like a minimalist kimono and has the color of another, different one. Her practice is deeply connected with (almost witchy) care of the properties of those organic processes that remain at the edge of our vision, consciously or not. She is a new species for me – a hybrid, cyborganic and extremely ephemeral.
Snejana Krasteva, curator