Joulia Strauss is an artist, activist and multimedia sculptor. She was born in the Soviet Union as Mari, one of Europe’s last indigenous cultures with a shamanic tradition, and now lives in Berlin and Athens.
Joulia Strauss stands for adisciplinary art and for the unity of technology, science, activism and art. She creates sculptural systems as political models based on ancient structures of knowledge but anarchically further develops those with the simulation technologies.
Strauss studied at the New Academy of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg and University of Fine Arts, Georg Baselitz class, in Berlin (Master, President’s Prize). Her sculptures, paintings, performances, drawings, videos, were presented at solo exhibitions such as: “Modulating Politics“, Kunsthalle Palazzo, Switzerland, 2011, “Welcome to the Mediterranean Basin“, Beton7 Gallery, Athens, 2010, “Cat-Notation“, COMA Gallery, Berlin, 2008, “Medienspiritismus. Videokabinet“, Guelman Gallery, Moscow, 2003, “Virtual Kingdom of Beauty“, Pergamon Museum, Berlin, 2000, and were shown in group exhibitions, among others, and multiple times in-part, at the Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, Hudson Valley Center for Contemporary Art, NY, Tirana Biennale, Oostende Museum of Modern Art, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Esther M. Klein Art Gallery, Philadelphia, Wolfsburger, Fraknfurter, Hamburger Kunstvereins, 2nd Athens Biennale, Fourth Moscow Biennale, Kyiv Biennial, Tate Modern, London, ZKM | Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, and documenta14.
Joulia Strauss is the founder and organiser of the Avtonomi Akadimia in Athens, she is involved in multiple educational projects and offers shamanic ecofeminist workshops within institutions which welcome the revolution, and far beyond.
In collaboration with Peter Weibel and Friedrich Kittler, Joulia Strauss published a book “Gods and Writing around the Mediterranean“, Wilhelm Fink Publishing.
Joulia Strauss is editor of Krytyka Polityczna Athens
She is currently training to earn her third stripe in Việt Võ Đạo Kung Fu and finalizing her film Transindigeneous Assembly.
Media archive (selection in english)
The Sun Machine is Coming Down – Berliner Festspiele, Art of the Working Class, 2021
Interview for the Goethe Institute Chile, by Raúl Hott, english translation
Radio International, Kyiv, Ukraine, by Anna Kravets
