ABOUT

 

 

Katya Lachowicz is an artist and anthropologist whose interdisciplinary practice operates at the intersection of contemporary art, social anthropology, and critical theory. Working between moving image, sound art, and performance – through embodied ethnographic fieldwork, fragments and sensory encounters – she explores how landscapes and political, ecological and material worlds are made, contested and transformed. Her practice revolves around the politics of (un)doing: how structures and narratives are produced, maintained and disrupted, and the forms of power, violence and possibility that accompany their transformation. 

Her work has been exhibited internationally, including Baumwollspinnerei Leipzig, Espace Duplex Geneva, Rewiry Centre for Culture in Lublin and the Multimedia Anthropology Lab, London. She has presented research among others at SIEF, Historical Materialism and CES. 

Since 2024 she co-organises Theatre from the Field, an internationally collaborative project supported by the Wenner-Gren Foundation in 2025, to develop new ways for anthropologists to think through performance, movement and non-verbal forms of knowing. As of October 2026 following on from Eva van Roekel and Fiona Murphy, she convenes the Creative Anthropologies Network together with Monika Weissensteiner and Rich Thornton at the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA).

CONTACT

Email: katya.lachowicz(a)gmail.com
Website: www.katyalachowicz.com
Instagram: @katyasartstudio

EDUCATION

2021-2026 PhD in Visual Anthropology, Goldsmiths University, UK
2015-2018 MSc in Social and Cultural Anthropology, University College London (UCL), UK
2009-2013 Dipl. (MA) in Media Arts, Academy of Visual Arts, Leipzig (HGB) Germany
2008-2009 Guest student at Academy of Visual Arts, Leipzig (HGB) Germany
2007-2008 BA in Drawing, University of Arts, Camberwell, London, UK
2006-2007 FdA in Fine Arts, University of Arts London, Byam Shaw (CSM), UK

CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS 

 

Possibilities in a Polarised World 

EASA, Poznań, 21-24 July 2026 

Critical Junctions: Anthropology on the Move

ASA, Birmingham 8-11th April 2025 

 

Doing and Undoing with Anthropology

EASA, Barcelona, 23-26th July 2024

Europe’s Past, Present, and Future: Utopias and Dystopias

CES, University of Iceland, 21st-25th June 2021

Rethinking Crisis, Resistance and Strategy
Historical Materialism, Panteion University, Athens, Greece, 2nd-5th May 2019

The Fourth International Conference on Visual Representations of the Other
Institute of Ethnology and Folklore, Sofia, Bulgaria, 2nd-5th December 2015

Contextualizing Changes: Migrations, Shifting Borders and New Identities in Eastern Europe, Dom na Uchenia, Sofia, Bulgaria, 8th - 10th October 2014

SELECTION OF EXHIBITIONS / SCREENINGS

 

Performances for a Polarized World, Ethnographic Salon, Pawilon Theatre, Poznań, 2026

 

Dolores & Friends, Kensington Library Cinema, London, UK, 29th February 2020  

Hyper-reality & Anthropology: Film Screening and Conversation with Katya Lachowicz
UCL, London, UK, 7th December 2018

Stereotypy o Polsce / Stereotypes about Poland, Brain Damage Gallery, Rewiry Centre for Culture, Lublin, Poland, 24th June - 8th July 2016

Cultural Clash Nomade, Espace Duplex, Geneva, Switzerland,

30th August - 22nd September 2013

 

SIEF2015: Utopias, Realities, Heritages: Ethnographies for the 21st Century, Zagreb, Croatia, 21st - 25th June 2015

Begehungen Art Festival no. 8, You Are Leaving the Area of Responsibility
Justizvollzugsanstalt (Prison) Kaßberg, Chemnitz, Germany, 18th - 21st August 2011

Pavilion X, Galerija Jakopič, Ljubljana, Slovenia, 

19th October - 15th November 2010

Klang im Namen des Raumes, Im Namen des Raumes, Berlin, Germany, 

18th July - 29th August 2010

Blockade I, Universal Cube, Leipziger Baumwollspinnerei, Leipzig, Germany, 

1st - 30th May 2010
 
Resonanzen: Festival für Hörkunst, Tapetenwerk, Leipzig, Germany, 

15th - 18th April 2010

CURATORIAL & ORGANISATIONAL POSITIONS

2013 Film programmer for the Cultural Clash Nomade, Germany, a touring art exhibition curated by Alba D’Urbano and Ingrid Wildi Merino.
 

2012 Member of organisational team for experimental film festival Avantgarde ist keine Strömung III, Luru Kino, Leipzig, Germany, curated by Tangen and Sarah Schipschack. 

2011 Workshop leader and curatorial team member for an art exhibition at the festival Dialog der Kulturen in partnership with the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation in Murmansk. 

2009 Member of IAG curatorial team for the media art exhibition Talk Talk – Interview als Künstlerische Praxis at the HGB Gallery in Leipzig, which later travelled onto Kunstverein Medienturm in Graz and Galerie 5020 in Salzburg as part of Steirischer Herbst Festival. The project was initiated by Marc Ries, alongside curators Reinhard Braun and Hildegard Fraueneder.


GRANTS / AWARDS / RESIDENCIES

2025 Wenner-Gren funding for Theatre from the Field
2013 DAAD Student Award
2012 Film funding from the Free State of Saxony Arts Council (KdFS)
2011 Sponsorship from Nubert, Thomann and In-Akustik for Economy of Guilt
2009 NGBK / UQBAR residency, Tourist Syndrome: Transient Spaces, Palanga, Lithuania
2005 SKOFFKA prize, Festival of Young Cinema, Kinoteka, Warsaw, Poland

TEXTS

 

'Scrub Hub an Autonomous Mutual Aid Response to Covid 19' in (ed.) Donaghey, J. Fight For a New Normal? Freedom Press, 2024, pp.29-46

With Jim Donaghey – Mutual Aid Versus Volunteerism: Autonomous PPE Production in the Covid-19 Pandemic Crisis, Capital & Class, 46(3), 2022, pp. 427-447 https://doi.org/10.1177/03098168211057686

'The Gourmet Nazi: Nationalism's Base in Privilege over Poverty' in (eds.) D'Urbano, A., Möller, C., Cultural Clash Nomade, Institut für Buchkunst Leipzig, 2021, pp.78-80

'Scrub Hub an Autonomous Mutual Aid Response to Covid-19' Anarchist Studies Blog, June 2020

'Nouvelles d'Iran', Agitation Autonome [French], August 2019

'The Cultivation of Image in the Multimedial Landscape of the Polish Film Chronicle' in (eds.) Demski D., Kassabova, A., Kristóf I., Laineste L., Baraniecka-Olszewska K., The Multimedialized Other: The Construction of Reality in East-Central Europe 1945-1980, L'Harmattan, 2017, pp.198-213 https://doi.org/10.56037/978-2-343-11863-5