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BIO
Sam Grabowska (b.1982 San Diego, CA, USA) is a multidisciplinary artist living and working in Denver, Colorado, USA. Working predominantly in sculpture, their installations aim to reconstruct the body after emotional trauma. Grabowska has exhibited their work in museums and galleries across the US and Sweden including the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, the Denver Art Museum, SOO Visual Art Center, and Rejmyre Art Lab. Their work has been reviewed in The Denver Post and Southwest Contemporary, among others. They hold a PhD in architecture with a cognate in cultural anthropology, an MH in interdisciplinary humanities, a BFA in film, and a BA in environmental design. Grabowska is the founder of Manifolding Labs, a research and consulting firm focusing on trauma-responsive spatial design.
ARTIST STATEMENT
My art practice is shaped by space and site, particularly “psychogeography,” how experiences, muscle memory, and emotions layer into our environment and reciprocally form us. Through sculpture and installation, I investigate the body as the contested site of interior psychological experiences and exterior hostile environments. My work is driven by my identity as a queer, child of Polish immigrants, 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. These interventions encourage viewers to recalibrate their body’s proprioceptive and intuitive sense of being-in-space.
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 “Haptic Terrain” / Denver Post / 2024
Review of “Haptic Terrain” / Southwest Contemporary / 2024
Review of “Haptic Terrain” / Out Front Magazine / 2024
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