Irina Birger by Marcel van der Vlugt
Irina Birger was born in Moscow and lived in Serbia as a teenager. She received a BFA from the Bezalel Academy of Fine Art and Design in Jerusalem and an MFA from the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam where she is currently based.
In her practice, Irina often takes the concrete social reality of a place as a point of departure. The artist examines, analyses, and visualizes cultural and social patterns and their dynamics by employing various artistic strategies ranging from anthropological observations to putting herself forward as the protagonist of the action. Her persona plays an important role in observing, infiltrating, and staging relationships between the individual and the collective. The continuous coexistence and confrontation between the self and the social, is one of the key issues in her work.
Drawing is Irina’s modus operandi. She uses this medium not only on paper but as a site-specific part of an installation or public art, in video works and, lately, in her participatory performances.
Irina’s work was presented a.o. in Israel Museum (IL), Tel Aviv Museum (IL), Haifa Museum of Art (IL), Mediamatic (NL), W139 (NL), Apexart (US), the Israeli Centre for Digital Art (IL), Today Art Museum (CN), Redtory (CN), Preview Berlin Art Fair (DE), Blue Oyster Art Project Space (NZ), Drawing Center Diepenheim (NL), Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam (NL), Kabinet T (CZ), Nieuw Dakota (NL), Amsterdam Drawing (NL), Viborg Kunsthal (DK), AMNUA (CN), Q21 (AT), Het Hem (NL), Kunsthal Kade (NL) and Museum Tot Zover (NL).
Irina was an artist in residency at a.o. Chinese European Art Centre (CN), the Israeli Center for Digital Art (IL), MeetFactory (CZ), Künstlerhaus Bethanien (DE) and MuseumsQuartier (AT).
Her works are part of many private and public collections such as Haaretz Art Collection (IL), Israel Museum (IL), C-Collection (Lichtenstein), EYE Collection (NL), Spoorbeeld (NL), CBK Zuidoost (NL) and Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (NL).
Irina accomplished projects for public space assigned by ProRail (Dutch Railways) in 2015 and by the Municipality of Utrecht in collaboration with TextielLab (Tilburg) in 2020.
© 2023 Irina Birger unless otherwise stated. Image and text may not be used without the prior permission of the copyright holder.