ABOUT

BIO

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Born in Thessaloniki, Greece, and of Armenian descent, Aikaterini Gegisian is a UK-educated visual artist, filmmaker, academic, and researcher whose practice reflects her layered cultural background. She divides her time between London and Thessaloniki, where she also cultivates a small homestead, echoing an interdisciplinary approach to art and life. Her practice—spanning collage, film, photography, installation, and textile design—engages in a feminist re-reading of optic technologies, questioning their role in constructing identities and defining visual pleasure. Gegisian works with found materials; not to evoke nostalgia but to challenge the dominance of the technological image in shaping perception. An image-maker at heart, she researches archives, reassembles visual histories, and deconstructs the past to build new image-worlds beyond the patriarchal gaze.

Gegisian’s work has earned international recognition, with exhibitions at major institutions such as the Venice Biennale (where she contributed to the Golden Lion-winning Armenian Pavilion in 2015), Mathaf (Doha), ICP (New York), the National Arts Museum of China (Beijing), MOMus (Thessaloniki), and BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art (Newcastle), The Institut Valencià d’Art Modern (Valencia), Spike Island Gallery (Bristol),  Kunsthalle Osnabruck (Germany), DEPO (Istanbul).Her practice has also been featured in prominent biennials, including Moscow, Mardin, Tallinn Photomonth, Thessaloniki, and Gyumri. Her short films have screened at festivals like Oberhausen, Kasseller Documentary, and Videoformes, and in 2016, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art hosted the first survey of her moving-image practice. Gegisian’s works are held in collections worldwide, including the Victoria & Albert Museum, Frac des Pays de la Loire, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, MOMus Thessaloniki, and the California Museum of Photography, cementing her position as a vital voice in contemporary art.

Gegisian often employs the photobook format. Her first publication, A Small Guide to the Invisible Seas (2015), was created for the Golden Lion-winning Armenian Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale. This was followed by Handbook of the Spontaneous Other (2020, MACK), which received international acclaim. Her work has been featured in leading photography publications including Aperture, British Journal of Photography, and Photoworks, and she has created illustrations for The Atlantic and Los Angeles Review of Books.

Educated at the University of Brighton (BA), Chelsea College of Art (MA), and University of Westminster (PhD), Gegisian has participated in prestigious fellowships including the Library of Congress, University of Pennsylvania, and Künstler:innenhaus Büchsenhausen. An active contributor to artistic discourse, she regularly leads workshops and lectures internationally while currently teaching at London Metropolitan University and Arts University Bournemouth.