Alexandra Holownia

I work as a performance artist, activist and interdisciplinary conceptual artist. As a performance artist, I deal with feminist topics on women’s rights. I protest against discrimination against women because of age and also against compulsory marriages. My performances are based on playing with the costumes and props I designed. I often use sound and movement. I perform indoors and outdoors, In urban public space, I provoke recipients who pass by me ambivalently

For a long time, I have been tempted to practice working in the silence of nature. As a climate defender, I decided to look for alternative spaces. The location of the Grass residence call out from Live Art Ireland seemed perfect. I was interested in the magic and strength of nature. Extensive fields and meadows, tangled bushes, wild, enlarged trees. All this emanated additional strength and i was called to act. The extreme environment of Milford House inspired me to perform a lonely action in which my partners stood trees, leaves, birds, mice, and spiders. Me as an older woman, dressed in a flashy red in the morning, seen as a symbol of sexuality and synonym of charming romance, sneaks through the trees of the Avenue towards Autumn. I collect dropped yellow, and golden leaves that I put on my body with memory and nostalgia about the past. I transform the makeup, which I do with red lipstick into warrior tattoo decorations. I hang a thick line on the tree and made bondage, thus manifesting my voluntary submission to nature. In this way, I created a vision of a female artistic figure subordinated to nature.

Alexandra Hołownia (born  in Poland), lives and works in Berlin. Studied interior design at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań. Completed post-graduate studies at the stage and costume design department at Józef Szajna’s Scenery Studio at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. Also completed her postgraduate studies in art in context at the University of the Arts (UdK) in Berlin. Alexandra Holownia deals with artistic performance, costume sculpture, video art, and drawing. She is a professional performance artist working internationally and shows her art at many festivals and in the context of artistic events such as fairs or art biennials. (Art Basel Miami Beach, Fridge Art Fair NYC, Manifesta11 Zürich Switherland, Crossing Performance Festival Praque Czech Republic, Fringe Art Festival Bath UK, PAB Bergen Norway, Edge Zone Performia Miami USA).

She is the author of unique artistic performances consisting in displaying her own costumes that are also sculptures. In 2007, Holownia created an artistic figure named Alexandra Fly, consisting of provocative actions in public spaces calling on the audience to respect women’s and gender rights.http://alexandraflysartproject.com/

 Alexandra Holownia feminstic works are for socio-political tolerance, acceptance of women’s rights and freedom of sexual self-determination.