Sissy Tsalpatourou

Born in Athens, she has been based in Thessaloniki since 2016. She is a graduate of the School of Fine Arts at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, specializing in Sculpture, and is currently completing the Interdepartmental Master's Programme Art and the Public Sphere at the same university. She has worked as an art educator for children, has coordinated a visual arts programme for adults in social reintegration in collaboration with KETHEA Ithaki, and has co-facilitated art-based workshops for students attending the School of Diavata Prison.Alongside her artistic practice, she works as a self-employed sculptor, waitress, cook, and agricultural worker. The core of her artistic research is structured around two distinct yet interconnected axes. The first investigates the social dimension of community-based and participatory art practices, with a particular interest in their potential as spaces of empowerment and collective visibility. The second focuses on the sustainability of artistic materials and their sculptural possibilities. Within this framework, she experiments with biodegradable materials such as gelatin, starch, kombucha leather, bio-textiles, and biodegradable clays, creating surfaces that exist at the threshold between the organic and the artificial.