Ioanna Sakellaraki (b.1989) is a Greek visual artist working across literary theory, archival research and visual arts. Her work investigates the relationship between collective cultural memory and fiction through photography, collage, embroidery and fictocritical writing. Her monograph 'The Truth is in the Soil' is published by GOST Books. She has exhibited internationally in Europe, UK, Australia and Japan. Her work has been acquired by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) Collection.
Research interests:
Ioanna is interested in inter- disciplinary critical theory in relation to visual arts. In her practice- led research, she utilises continental philosophy and literary theory to pursue research across diverse discursive and visual registers. She is currently at the last phase of her PhD study entitled 'Archiving the Disaster: Preservation, Separation and Encounter', in which she draws from French literary thinker's Maurice Blanchot's work, and more specifically his book The Writing of the Disaster (1986), to investigate how an expanded photographic art practice can utilise the Blanchotian disaster as the critical and conceptual framework for interpreting personal and historical archives. She has previously obtained an MA in Photography from The Royal College of Art, an MA in European Urban and Cultural Studies from Manchester Metropolitan University and a BA in Media and Communication from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. After a decade of work as a Writer/Editor and Communications Strategist for non-governmental organisations in the fields of culture, space technologies, human rights and public health in Europe, she currently works as a freelancer in communications and media next to her photography and research. She has been awarded a Sony World Photography Award (2020), a Bursary Award from The Royal Photographic Society (2018) and additional funding from the Arts Council UK (2021) and RMIT University International Scholarship Scheme (2021-2024).
