Julia Bavyka is a Kazakhstan-born interdisciplinary artist, writer and community organiser interested in the intersection of artistic and everyday research. Their practice is both conceptual and social, focusing on the gallery as a site for dialogue and thinking – beyond modes of representation, to possibilities of being together and experiencing together. Bavyka’s early installations employed text, abstract sculpture and vernacular objects to approach social issues around group identity, displacement and bureaucratic cultures. Recent projects prioritise collaboration and audience-activated spaces, such as the Mladen Stilinović Study Centre (2016–2019), Hyperreadings with Benjamin Forster and Sean Dockray, and Soft Infrastructure with Connie Anthes (2019–). Writing is an integral part of their practice. Their text ‘Not everyone will be taken into the future but you still have to keep imagining it’ was recently published in the artists book Cp 20 (Yellow George/Schmick Projects, 2021). Bavyka is a janitor at Frontyard Projects in Marrickville, a proactive, flexible space for practical skills-sharing, community cultural engagement and critical activist research.
