Ira Melkonyan is an artist and biologist whose work spans several disciplines. Her background in microbiology and virology brings a unique perspective to her artistic practice and informs her current artistic research on biological fluids. Through her performances and installations, she explores non-human actants, transitions, fluidity and liquid boundaries. Ira Melkonyan is from Odessa in Ukraine and she currently lives in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
As the rubberbodies collective, founded in 2009, Ira Melkonyan collaborates with Jimmy Grima, a multisciplinary artist based in Amsterdam and Malta who is interested in archival practices, historiographies, and the relationship between the marginal and the mainstream. In their collaborations the two create performative situations in various forms.
https://rubberbodiescollective.com/
Photo credits: Liza Koval