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BIO
Sam Grabowska is a multidisciplinary artist living and working in Denver, Colorado, USA. Working predominantly in sculpture, their installations aim to reconstruct the body after trauma. Corporeal traces, such as human hair and animal sinew, combine with industrial building materials, like concrete and conduit. Abstracted figurative forms intersect with architectural drawing types.
Grabowska has exhibited their work in museums and galleries in the US and Sweden including the Denver Art Museum, Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Redline Contemporary Art Center, and SOO Visual Art Center. They hold a PhD in architecture with a cognate in cultural anthropology from the University of Michigan, an MH in interdisciplinary humanities from the University of Colorado Denver, as well as a BFA in film and a BA in environmental design from the University of Colorado Boulder.
Grabowska is the founder of Manifolding Labs, a research and consulting firm focusing on trauma-responsive spatial design with a range of clients including art museums, community organizations, architecture firms, and mental health practitioners.
ARTIST STATEMENT
My art practice is strongly influenced by space and site, particularly “psychogeography,” how experiences, muscle memory, and emotions layer into our environment and reciprocally shape us. Through sculpture and installation, I investigate the body's relationship with the landscape and built environments and how people from traditionally marginalized communities navigate and resist emotional trauma. My work is driven by my identity as a queer, second-generation Polish-American, non-binary artist, prompting themes of the abject and otherness.
The materials I use seek to make porous the boundary between fleshy abject bodies and sterile controlled environments. I work predominantly with construction materials (conduit, concrete, mesh, fasteners), synthetics that mimic organics (singed and torn expanding foam, melted plastic, bioplastic), and traces of the human body (hair, sinew).
The forms of my sculpture are to be inhabited, whether physically or imagined. I derive forms from tracing the body positions people take when protecting themselves or others, either in times of self-defense or repose. These forms are abstracted using architectural techniques of the sectional and plan drawing, isometric perspective, and site models.
My pieces aim to challenge the linearity and material homogeneity of institutional spaces by puncturing floors, mutating walls, and contracting thresholds. My hope is that this encourages viewers to notice and question their surroundings and to highlight the traces that we all leave behind.
In my research, I am an early pioneer of trauma-informed architecture theory and practice. I draw from spatial theory, gender studies, psychoanalysis, and cultural anthropology to examine how we can build spaces that harm less and help regulate the nervous system. Whether in the studio or in the field, the way our bodies sensorily process the environment as well as the imprints of our cultural and interpersonal experiences are my primary concerns.
CV
Artist CV //// Academic/Research CV
Press
Review of “INTAKE” / Southwest Contemporary / 2023
Review of “Grossly Affectionate” / Denver Post / 2022
Studio visit / Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art / 2021
Studio feature / Hyperallergic / 2022
Interview / Voyage Denver / 2021
Interview / The Denver Art Museum / 2022