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Olga Kozmanidze (b.1985, she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist, working at the intersection of performance, sound art and music. She explores the uncanny within herself, things, people and spaces to facilitate rapture, resonance and affect.

Kozmanidze is an alumni of the Experimental Sound and Multimedia Technology program at Moscow’s SA))studio and Voice Movement integration program in Amsterdam. She is a founding member of the award-winning Berlin-based project "Sentire", a participatory performance that engages a system that transforms human interaction into sound.

Her work has been presented internationally as part of Paesaggi Sonori festival, Pescara (2023), Madness / Disruption Network Lab, Berlin (2022), Malá Inventura Festival, Prague (2019), Satellite Art Show/Miami Art Fair, Miami (2016) and more. In 2023, Kozmanidze received the "Performative" prize from the Italian foundation MAXXI for her work "Self - reversing," and in 2024, she became a finalist for the E.ART.H Prize from the foundation Eataly in collaboration with Illycaffè.

Currently, Kozmanidze is based between Berlin and Pescara, IT where she collaborates with "Campo Ife", "Orti Geometrici" and "Pollinaria", organizations which adopt regenerative ways of nature-cultural production in rural areas.

Olga Kozmanidze (1985, she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist, working primarily at the intersection of performance, sound art and music. By means of the body, sound, and new media technologies she explores the uncanny within herself, things, people and spaces to facilitate rapture, resonance and affect. Kozmanidze has created performances, participatory projects, music compositions and more.

Russian born, Kozmanidze holds a diploma in law and worked as a creative producer and new business executive in the advertising agency she co-founded. She then left the agency and moved to Berlin to pursue her career as an artist. Trained as a pianist, Kozmanidze has been a singer-songwriter since her childhood. She is an alumni of the Experimental Sound and Multimedia Technology program at Moscow’s SA))studio, an avant-garde community of Russian sound and media artists of whom her professors were Sergei Kasich and Andrey Smirnov. Kozmanidze also studied performance art with Liza Morozova, one of the pioneering performance artists in Russia. She then pursued somatic training with Patricia Bardi in Amsterdam at VMI Somatic Practice Certification Program combining Vocal Dance, Voice Movement Integration Practice and bodywork.

Kozmanidze was a part of the avant-garde art and science community "Spektrum", a space for Berlin’s Echtzeimusic, new media and interactive art scene. There she co-initiated "Unfold", the meet-up and an interdisciplinary playground to explore human-computer interaction to discover, unfold, perform, hack, and connect our ineffable perception. Also in Spektrum, together with Marcello Lussana and Pascal Staudt she co-founded the award-winning project "Sentire". Beginning as a participatory performance that engages a system that transforms human interaction into sound, it is now an interdisciplinary research project that brings together artists, scholars and therapists. In 2019 "Sentire" received a grant from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research for  three years of research at the Humboldt University, Berlin. Kozmanidze joined the University team as a research associate to investigate the Sentire sound system’s ability to foster social interaction. She continues to present the project as a performer and a workshop facilitator.

In 2020 she started visiting Italy where she collaborated and learnt from people and projects adopting regenerative ways of nature-cultural production in rural areas: Robida Collective, "Pollinaria" and "Orti Geometrici".

Kozmanidze is now a founding member of a not-for-profit organization "Campo Ife" in Pescara where she facilitates multidisciplinary and multispecies encounters to promote ecological narratives. In 2023, Kozmanidze received the "Performative" prize from the foundation MAXXI for her work "Self-reversing," and in 2024, she became a finalist for the E.ART.H Prize from the foundation Eataly in collaboration with Illycaffè.

Kozmanidze is a singer-songwriter and a record producer in her solo pop-music project "Folga". As "Unfinishe_" she composes experimental music with prepared instruments, field recordings, electronics, vocals and tape. Drawing from her performative training, Kozmanidze facilitates workshops for adults and children to explore creative expression through somatic movement.

Appearances include Paesaggi sonori festival, Pescara (2023); Madness / Disruption Network Lab, Berlin (2022); Malá Inventura Festival, Prague (2019); Just Mad Art Fair, Madrid (2017); CIPAF Performance Art Festival, Cyprus (2016); Satellite Art Show/Miami Art Fair, Miami (2016).

Currently, Kozmanidze lives and works between Berlin and Pescara, Italy.

2023 Performative 03, L'Aquila
2023 Paesaggi sonori, Pescara
2022 Gala festival, Loreto Aprutino
2022 Scenari Europei, Pescara
2019 Eufonia, Berlin
2019 Malá Inventura Festival, Prague
2018 Project Space Festival, Berlin
2018 Lange Nacht der Wissenschaften, Berlin
2018 KlangKellar festival for experimental music, Berlin
2018 CTM Vorspiel, Könnig Otto, Berlin
2017 Wärmflasche sound and performance art festival, Green House, Berlin
2017 Scope sessions, Spektrum, Berlin
2017 Berlin International Performance Art Weekend, Luisa Catucci Gallery, Berlin
2016 Satellite art show, Miami art week, USA
2016 Archstoyanie, Nikola-Lenivetz, Russia
2016 CIPAF international performance art festival, Cyprus
2015 Archstoyanie, Nikola-Lenivetz, Russia
2015 Moscow Music Week at Mars Gallery, Moscow
2015 Prepared Wednesdays festival for experimental music, GCCA, Moscow

Exhibitions, solo-shows:

2021 Museo Laboratorio, Città Sant'Angelo, Italy
2017 Just Mad Art Fair, Madrid
2016 10 new at Solyanka VPA Gallery, Moscow
2016 Zvukochto at Graund Gallery, Moscow
2016 Antimuseum at Elektromuseum, Moscow
2015 Art-dictionary: A-art, F-feminism, NII DAR Gallery, Moscow.

Conferences, symposiums:

2022 Madness, Berlin
2020 Music, media, art education, Berlin
2019 Reihe: interacting with body, electronics and space, Berlin
2018 Linux Audio Conference, Berlin

Residencies:

2022 Summer school of margins by Robida, Topolove, Italy
2017 Just Mad Art Residency, Aviles, Spain
2016 Break Through, Kreativquartier, Munich
2016 New Synchronicities / CIPAF, Cyprus

Collaborations:

2023 on, Pollinaria, Civitella Casanova, IT
2020 on, Orti Geometrici, Pescara, IT
2018 on, Unfold:community for unfolding perception, Berlin
2018 MAVOtech IV by Tomomi Adachi, Hamburger Bahnhof Museum, Berlin
2018 Vokale Räume by Maulwerker and Cristian Kesten, Ballhous Ost, Berlin
2018 Y with Martina Marini Misterioso
2016 on, a member of MovLab Community, Spektrum, Berlin
2016 on, co-founder, performer, researcher in "Sentire"


2024 E.ART.H PRIZE (finalist), Eataly Art House Foundation, Verona, IT
2023 PERFORMATIVE Prize, Foundation "MAXII", Rome, IT
2019 GRANT FOR A RESEARCH PROJECT “SOCIAL INTERACTION THROUGH SOUND FEEDBACK – SENTIRE”, German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Berlin, DE
2019 “NEW MUSIC INSTRUMENT FOR THE THERAPY” PRIZE, Musikmesse, Frankfurt, DE
2018 INM GRANT, Initiative Neue Musik, Berlin, DE (with the Sentire project)
2016 STEP BEYOND TRAVEL GRANT, European Cultural Foundation

FESTIVALS

2023 Performative 03, L'Aquila
2023 Paesaggi sonori, Pescara
2022 Gala festival, Loreto Aprutino
2022 Scenari Europei, Pescara
2019 Eufonia, Berlin
2019 Malá Inventura Festival, Prague
2018 Project Space Festival, Berlin
2018 Lange Nacht der Wissenschaften, Berlin
2018 KlangKellar festival for experimental music, Berlin
2018 CTM Vorspiel, Könnig Otto, Berlin
2017 Scope sessions, Spektrum, Berlin
2017 Berlin International Performance Art Weekend, Luisa Catucci Gallery, Berlin
2016 Satellite art show, Miami art week, USA
2016 Archstoyanie, Nikola-Lenivetz, Russia
2016 CIPAF international performance art festival, Cyprus
2015 Moscow Music Week at Mars Gallery, Moscow
2015 Prepared Wednesdays festival for experimental music, GCCA, Moscow

EXHIBITIONS, SOLO SHOWS:

2021 Museo Laboratorio, Città Sant'Angelo,
2017 Just Mad Art Fair, Madrid
2016 10 new at Solyanka VPA Gallery, Moscow
2016 Zvukochto at Graund Gallery, Moscow
2016 Antimuseum at Elektromuseum, Moscow
2015 Art-dictionary: A-art, F-feminism, NII DAR Gallery, Moscow.

CONFERENCES, SYMPOSIUMS

2022 Madness, Berlin
2020 Music, media, art education, Berlin
2019 Reihe: interacting with body, electronics and space, Berlin
2018 Linux Audio Conference, Berlin

RESIDENCIES:

2022 Summer school of margins by Robida, Topolove, Italy
2017 Just Mad Art Residency, Aviles, Spain
2016 Break Through, Kreativquartier, Munich
2016 New Synchronicities / CIPAF, Cyprus

COLLABORATIONS:

2023 on, Pollinaria, Civitella Casanova, IT
2020 on, Orti Geometrici, Pescara, IT
2018 on, Unfold:community for unfolding perception, Berlin
2018 MAVOtech IV by Tomomi Adachi, Hamburger Bahnhof Museum, Berlin
2018 Vokale Räume by Maulwerker and Cristian Kesten, Ballhous Ost, Berlin
2018 Y with Martina Marini Misterioso
2016 on, a member of MovLab Community, Spektrum, Berlin
2016 on, co-founder, performer, researcher in "Sentire"



PRIZES, GRANTS

2024 “E.ART.H” PRIZE (finalist), Eataly Art House Foundation, Verona, IT
2023 “PERFORMATIVE” PRIZE, MAXXI Foundation, Rome, IT
2019-2020 GRANT FOR A RESEARCH PROJECT “SOCIAL INTERACTION THROUGH SOUND FEEDBACK – SENTIRE”, German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Berlin, DE
2019 “NEW MUSIC INSTRUMENT FOR THE THERAPY” PRIZE, Musikmesse, Frankfurt, DE
2018 INM GRANT, Initiative Neue Musik, Berlin, DE (w. the Sentire Project)
2016 STEP BEYOND TRAVEL GRANT, European Cultural Foundation

SELECTED APPEARANCES