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Bio - Iri Berkleid started her career in 2017 with Flesh and Stones, during her residency in R.A.R.O Madrid. This multidisciplinary collaborative work bears the mark of her past, as she was working as a producer in contemporary opera in London. Merging video projections, experimental technics of argentic photography, performance and scenography, Iri stages 4 performers while being guided by themes that would later drive her artistic exploration: the link between psyche and matter.

 

Trained in classic sculpture and drawing at ESAG Pennighen Paris, she started to work with organic later as she was undertaking her MFA at the school of Visual Arts in New York between 2018 and 2020. At the school’s biolab, she discovers bacterial cellulose produced by Symbiotic Cultures of Bacteria and Yeast that which biological processes became her main constraints for creations and a major source of inspiration.

 

Following the Covid-19 crisis, Iri resettled in Paris and started building her own culture vats in her studio. She experimented with the matter until she figured a unique way of cocreating with the microorganisms, revisiting both sculpture and drawing technics through bio principles.

 

Before starting her artistic career, Iri graduated in law and studied diplomatic conflict resolution – she researched the impact of collective emotions in inter-ethnic conflicts on politics. She then trained as a mediator in international organizations.

 

This work experience made her aware of power relations, social structures, and conflict dynamics. Creating experiences of communion through the ritualistic and organic aspects of her work, Iri’s creation might be viewed as an attempt to transcend these cultural, psychological and physical barriers.