Paulina Siniatkina’s artistic practice is deeply rooted in a strongly autobiographical dimension. Her research is driven by a direct engagement with the theme of illness, articulated through the narration of her personal experience and her struggle against social stigmatization.
Siniatkina reflects on and examines her prolonged period of isolation and recovery from tuberculosis. Her works function as tools for raising awareness—visual metaphors aimed at fostering understanding and prompting reflection on the sense of alienation that often affects those living in conditions of vulnerability and enforced isolation. Through her practice, the artist restores a more human and relatable dimension to what is commonly perceived as distant or frightening.
In the ceramic series In Vitra Viva, Siniatkina transforms laboratory utensils into domestic objects, enacting a conceptual and functional shift. Test tube racks, emblematic of a sterile and controlled environment, are reimagined as vases and small terrariums that host and nurture plant life: seedlings that grow, expand, and extend through the structures’ openings, redefining their boundaries. Originally designed to contain and isolate, these devices become generative and vital spaces.
Through acts of decontextualization and reinvention, the artist intervenes in the perception and imagery associated with medical equipment—often linked to fear and anxiety—reframing it within an intimate, familiar, and welcoming dimension. The work contributes to a broader reflection on care, understood not only in clinical terms but also in emotional and interpersonal ones, proposing a possible way of processing trauma through the symbolic transformation of objects and the meanings attached to them.

Paulina Siniatkina, from In Vitra Viva series
Hospitality project
Installation, ceramic, plants, 2022 -2026

Paulina Siniatkina, dalla serie In Vitra Viva
Hospitality project,
Installation, ceramic, plants, 2022 -2026
exposition view in Bradwolff Projects gallery in Amsterdam 22.02-24.03 2026

25/04/26