Karolina Freino. Born in 1978. Studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław (sculpture), Edinburgh College of Art (School of Sculpture) and Bauhaus University Weimar (MFA Public Art and New Artistic Strategies). In the years 2014-17 she earned the PhD degree (Faculty of Media Art, Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw / Faculty of Sculpture and Intermedia, Academy of Fine Arts in Gdansk), in 2025 she obtained habilitation (Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław). She has realised a number of actions in public spaces, solo and group exhibitions in Poland and abroad. Scholarship holder of, among others, the Alfred Töpfer Stiftung and the Minister of Culture and National Heritage. She works at the junction of different media, predominantly in public sphere. Her artistic practice is strongly rooted in a given context, working with a place (site), its physical, political, social or mental emanation, as well as the memory recorded in it. She also often inscribes the narrations of her works in an immaterial network of relationships, information circulation, collective symbols and imagery.

Achievements

1. 2024, vanishing structures. Politics of Disappearance, group show, Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Vienna, Austria
2. 2022, All Familiar Characters, solo show, Studio BWA, Wrocław, Poland
3. 2020, Strike!, installation in public space, within POCHEN Biennale Preis der Zukunft, Chemnitz, Germany
4. 2017, Confluence. The Monument to Emma Goldman, installation in public space, within 11th Kaunas Biennial, (Im)possibility of a monument: There and not there, Kaunas, Lithuania
5. 2015, The Wild West. A History of Wrocław’s Avant-Garde, group show, Zacheta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, Poland

Language of consultations:

Polish, English

Characteristic of the projects and research in which the PhD student is to be subsumed, including the expected practical and theoretical competencies of the PhD student:

Intermedia activities in public sphere, embedded in a broader social, political, historical or material context. Art resulting from adopting a conscious and critical approach to the reality around, current social phenomena and relations, media circulation, symbolic and historical narratives, as well as the discourses in the field of art and culture. The imperative to formulate one's own voice in the public sphere using the language and tools of art. Operating by using contemporary artistic strategies, research attitude, strong conceptual component, openness to experimentation.

Characteristic of didactic cooperation between the supervisor and the PhD student:

The collaboration will aim to support the PhD student in developing his/her own interests and creative path, and will be based on dialogue and mutual inspiration.

The following will be important: activity in undertaking intermedia artistic activities; developing responsibility and a high awareness of the aims, means used and effects of artistic activity; improving the ability to conduct research, realise works and describe and document them; flexibility in choosing a form (medium) adequate to the concept of the works; openness to cooperation with other people and entities, also from outside the field of art; motivation for development.