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ABOUT

Maria Kossak is a Berlin-based multimedia and performance artist of Polish descent. She was born behind the Iron Curtain into a family of artists and writers. Due to the oppressive political climate and her family’s subsequent emigration, she found herself in West Berlin during the late Cold War period. Throughout the 1980s, the divided city became her childhood playground, and life in Berlin shaped not only her personal but also her artistic identity. Following family inclination, Kossak studied painting, photography and new media at the Sydney College of Arts in Australia, and visual and performance art at the University of Fine Arts (UdK) in Berlin, from which she graduated with special honors. For the past two decades she has lived and worked in the district of Neukölln.

Artist portrait by Peter C. Theis © KOSSAK Fine Art Studio @ Bildhauerwerkstatt Berlin-Wedding 02.11.2026 - with many thanks to Nika Bakhia.

Since childhood, Kossak has lived with chronic illness, bringing episodes of severe immobility and excruciating pain. Moving between strength and stillness, she has come to understand impermanence and limitation not as endpoints but as the ground from which resilience and renewal emerge.

Kossak’s art has been exhibited within and outside of Europe and is represented in international collections. Dr. Joanna Kiliszek, curator

selected press articles

20 JAHRE EXBERLINER

"wings of desire" excerpt - Der Himmel über Berlin

Exberliner: celebratory issue, published in summer 2022

"... »She holds the world but as the world – A stage where every angel plays their part…«

Berlin 128 – Magazine

Interview excerpt - Kultur im Dienste des Staates

Text: Monika Stefanek, published in spring 2016, Berlin/ Germany

"... »Nationalistische Rhetorik weckt natürlich Erinnerungen an die dunklen Zeiten in Europa«, sagt Maria Kossak.

KULTURTIEGEL

Maria Kossak, Neuköllns Goldfinger

Marek Staszyc, published autumn 2015, Lodz/Poland –  Link zum Artikel

POLITYKA

Polen-Berlin-Witkacy

Text: Anna Tyszecka. Erschienen im Sommer 2015, Warschau/Polen

Link zum vollständigen Artikel

POLITYKA

Doppelidentitäten

Text: Anna Tyszecka. Erschienen im Sommer 2014, Warschau/Polen

Link zum vollständigen Artikel

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