FEBRUARY 22, 2022 - Voyage Denver

Conversations with Sam Grabowska

Today we’d like to introduce you to Sam Grabowska. 

Hi Sam, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I usually introduce myself as a child of immigrants, recovering academic, and someone afraid of the sound of commercial toilets flushing. I think it sums up my journey pretty well. 

I was born in the States to two Polish immigrants who come from a long line of intergenerational trauma: occupations, wars, and displacements. I spent most of my childhood building little forts in the hills behind my house. Inside of these little structures, I collected bones, wasp nests, and feathers, creating rituals that helped me ground myself in the feral world while escaping the harms of the human world. Always seeking small pockets of refuge. 

Throughout my adolescence, ecology and photography were some of these pockets. In undergrad, this expanded to experimental film (I went to CU Boulder during Brackhage’s last years) and architecture (what are we if not animals who build our own captivity?). For my master’s degree, I proposed the concept of “feminine wilderness” in a theoretical text triangulating gender, spatial, and psychoanalytical theory. During that time, I was living in Andenken, a gallery in Denver, with 12 young men and one bathroom. I moved to Michigan for my Ph.D. For my dissertation research, I spent two summers on the US-Mexico border investigating the little structures that unauthorized border-crossers built to mitigate political, ecological, and interpersonal trauma. I ran a little microcinema for architecture students, showing experimental and international film that hit on spatial themes. 

After a long and convoluted relationship with academia (like an unhealthy coping mechanism that began to do more harm than good) I opted out of continuing my academic career, at least inside of the institution. My environmental and sensory sensitivities have been oddly fun to explore in the context of art and architecture. 

The shift has been substantial but also feels completely natural. Now I’m an artist-in-residence at Redline Contemporary Art Center. I’m also the founder of Manifolding Labs, an interdisciplinary consultancy and research firm that specializes in trauma-informed space, design, and architecture. 

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
This ol’ bag o’ bones is tired with shocks pretty worn from the ruts and bumps. I’m ready for that Cadillac Comfort, that soft buoyant drift. Thanks to an amazing support system, a smoother road lies ahead. 

Like so many children of immigrants, non-binary, and queer kids, navigating ‘otherness’ was, and is still an ongoing project. That constant feeling of ‘inbetweenness’ can be as much a blessing (in creativity) as a curse (for convenience). 

Earlier in life the struggles were related to the crisis of interpersonal relationships alongside a body that forgot how to process and feel. Add to that the usual suspects: depression and anxiety. And some genetic disorders. 

Nowadays the struggles are more professional. I’ve been recalibrating and revaluing what I want to do, how I want to do it, and how to advocate for myself. It feels like starting from scratch which is both daunting and freeing. 

I’ve also been reflecting on pleasure and how it has shifted in my life from being a mode of escape to a practice of grounding. It’s so easy for me to get pulled back into stress and self-flagellation. Finding that sweet spot of gentle pride in my work and existence has been pretty close to revolutionary. 

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
My productive life is Venn diagram of my art practice and my research practice. 

On the art side of things, I’m currently an artist-in-residence at Redline Contemporary Art Center. I still work in photography and video but have recently expanded to sculpture and installation. I’m drawn to materials that simultaneously evoke an “ick” and an “ooooh” response. Some of the materials are visceral in nature like real human hair and flesh-colored rubber which are wedded with distressed or deformed building materials like PVC conduit and concrete board. I like appropriating architectural drawing and representational language (mapping, sections, plans, diagramming) to create surreal structures or imagined spaces. I’m most proud of staying in that really frustrating space of experimentation with new techniques and materials where everything is falling apart but if you hang on it will amass into something exciting. 

On the research side of things, I’m the founder of Manifolding Labs, a research, design, and consulting firm that specializes in trauma-informed design. I work with architecture firms to suss out the physiological and psychological impacts of space as well as the therapeutic needs of end-users (like residents and staff). Currently, I’m working with a team at Shopworks, an architecture firm that builds supportive housing for people exiting homelessness or in other stages of major life transitions. I love being curious about how space subconsciously affects us and how that could be leveraged to help heal people whose bodies are in a state of traumatized activation. 

What are your plans for the future?
Hopefully, the big changes are behind me for a bit! 

This year I will be completing a body of work themed around emotional and physical trauma, architectural space, and the visceral body. I will have a large piece at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art in a group show this summer. Also, this summer I am teaming up with local artist Javier Flores to take over the Denver Art Museum for a night as part of the Untitled Event series. After my residency ends at Redline, I will be looking for more residencies around the world (if COVID allows traveling). 

Also, this year I’m undertaking a new research project combining 3D VR scans of buildings, EEG headsets, real-time biomarker trackers, and phenomenological interviewing to find spatial calmants and stressors in architecture. I’m basically trying to figure out what hurts or harms us in a building, especially if we’ve experienced trauma.