My name is Ksenia Poleshchuk, I am 34 y.o. from St Petersburg, Russia
here you could see my CV (2026)
and list of art prjects (below)
Research interests:
Environmental sciences and its political impact, climate sciences, Art& science, Scientific mediation, Methodology of science, Models in natural sciences, Scientist's relationships with an object of study, Arctic, Antarctic, Landscape as an operational unit, Time and cycles in natural sciences, relationships with the environment, sustainable environmental practices, local environmental practices, grass-roots, feminists, colonial perspective of relationship with environment
Education
Bachelor's Degree in Physical Geography
2009 — 2013 — Saint Petersburg State University, Earth Science Institute, department of physical geography and landscape planning. Bachelor’s graduation project: «Inland water level change in Late Pleistocene and Holocene» (grade «excellent»)
Master's
Degree in Physical Geography
2013 — 2015 — Saint Petersburg State University, Earth Science Institute, department of physical geography and landscape planning. Master’s graduation project: «Holocene relative sea-level changes in Antarctic margin regions based on paleogeographical data from King George Island (West Antarctica) and Bunger Oasis (East Antarctica)» (grade «excellent»)
Aspiranture program (PhD program)
in Physical Geography
2015 — 2018 — Saint Petersburg State University, Earth Science Institute, department of physical geography and landscape planning. PhD program, research topic — Holocene relative sea-level changes in Antarctic margin
Additional education:
2021, March — July — student of The Terraforming Program, second year of design research program of
Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture, and Design, Moscow
2022, March — April — student of a Moscow Anthropology School, course «ecology of subject»
Work
Scientific job:
Engineer at Department of Polar Regions Geography, Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (July 2015 — January 2020)
Researcher at Department of Polar Regions Geography, Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (February 2020 — September 2021)
Additional environmental projects:
Landscape mapping for ecological investigations, (Central Soil Museum, St Petersburg, October 2016)
Other jobs:
Brand and marketing manager, «KSK-system» vibro-laser.com/ (September 2020 — August 2021)
Comic illustrator for the residency «VKLUCHENIYE», Archangelsk, Russia (October 2021 — January 2022)
Volunteer at a permaculture farm, Cali, Colombia (march 2022 —July 2022)
Volunteer at a permaculture farm, Paraty, Brazil (September 2022)
Writer for Russian ecological independent magazine «Kedr» (October — November 2022)
Independent tattoo-artist (since September 2022)
Designer and environmental educator in a fundation YutopiaLab, Cali, Colombia (since february 2023)
Expeditions
Member of geomorphological group at polar research expedition «Sever-2014», Bolshevik Island, Severnaya Zemlya archipelago during July 2015 — October 2015
Svalbard archipelago: polar research expedition, July — August, October — November 2016; July — August 2017 (head of the group); , July — August, September — October 2018; , May — August 2019 (head of the group)
Schools, workshops, organizing
Scientific schools and workshops:
Young specialists training in Arctic and Antarctic Research
Institute (Saint Petersburg) during 2013-2015; Microscopic workshop in Otto Shmidt Laboratory for
Polar and Marine Research, Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (Saint
Petersburg), 2014; Summer school-workshop for young scientists in based
on Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (Saint Petersburg), June 2014; Diatom school and conference in Zvenigorod, Russia,
August 2015; INTIMATE Example training school, Poland, 5-11 of
June 2016; IAEA Workshop, Vienna, Austria, 18 of June — 10 of July 2018
Cycle of seminars «Ecologies of war» by Instutute of contemporary art, Mayami — 10 of October — 2 of November 2022
Art workshops, labs and schools:
A Creative Workshop «SOUR PATCH PRESS The Orientation of Objects» 7 — 16 of October 2021
Art-laboratory «Fairytailes» by Kristina Kolesnikova October 2021 — February 2022
Art-laboratory «Curso de desarrollo de Proyectos artisticos» by Diego Arregui March — July 2025
Art-laboratory «Taktiki prob» by Lena Chetverik October — December 2025
Art projects
Zine Ksks
— art-project about perception of beauty and an illusion of scientific classification. A zine made in collaboration with artist and embroiderist Ksusha Tuleneva. For that visual experiment in a form of zine we used my Arctic photos, and each zine was embroidered by hands.
Published and launched 17/05/17 in St Petersburg
Zine LAYERS
— an art-project about relationships of a researcher and an object of study, made in collaboration with Anna Kaplan. In printed zine we are referring to old geological reports that are using transparent paper, which helps us to show absence of an object which can be seen as knowledge too — as a speed of glacier melt can be represented by its disappearing parts.
Printed and launched in May 2021 in ITMO gallery, St Petersburg
POLARNIK
— a small art-project in a form of web-zine that reflect my personal understanding of post-soviet scientists and their relationships with beliefs and post-communist idealism in the place where you can meet a unique interconnectedness of scientific perception of nature and mysticism
SEDIMENTS AND FOSSILS
This project was made as a part of a course and ended up with an exhibition in Kai Art Residency in July 2025.
The exhibition space invited the audience to experience time of one´s life through scientific lens: to observe an imigration from a position of a scientist observing its object of study. Room is filled with ¨sediment outsrops¨ made using experimental visuals language, that outcrops are a geological representation of a personal experience of immigration and loosing your previous environment. The outcrops are accompanied with the scans of an object of the study and the texts, that invites the viewer to «read as a geologist».
More you can find here.
FANTOM MAP OF THE MOTHERLAND
«A visual experiment inspired by semi-forsed migration and nostalgia» that was performed as an exhibition in Kai Residency, Peru, 2025.
Here we have an experiment, where you can observe the scientist that is studying surrounding ecosystem by using a familiar language — a map. But, there is no traditional scientific method, there are only scientific intuition and nostalgia. This time the scientist become an object of study: except of species and ecosystem, here we are inviting you to study an immigrant and its asylum. The only scientific instrument is being used is transparent paper, a filter to perceive and capture reality in a familiar way for the scientist. There are no traditional scientific methods being used, a scientist is no longer the subject that study the object; here we have another kind of object — which is the result of existing in scientific environment, the result of scientific way of thinking — myself. During these years in the science I have learned to observe, notice, analyse, classify. Therefore, in a parallel with adapting to scientific methodology, I grew a scientific intuition. And here is the experiment: if we will take the scientific method from the scientist, there will be intuition left; if we will take the motherland from the immigrant, there will be nostalgia. Here you can see — the invasive species, not typical for the local ecosystem, and its way of perceiving the world through that transparent paper, which was created before, in the native ecosystem. In that experiment we call it «a phantom map of the motherland».
— video-essay about scientific perception of the objects. In this poetic essay I am applying these scientific method on myself being far from home, trying to reconstruct my previous environment using the most basic geological principle — the uniformitarian principle.
Shot in Georgia, 2021
Time — video-essay about scientific and personal perception of time. It was made as a first respond to the war in Ukraine that shifted perception of time from paleogeographical abstract and metodological perception to a very personal and subjective, and by this very political feeling of no future, of zeroing time. Screened in Georgia, made in Cali, Colombia, march 2022
The video was screened as a part of a program of the art festival Climate Caravans, 27 of August 2022, Berlin, Germany
Gringa/mujer — a video-essay made on a phone during my South American journey. This jorney started from the war in Ukraine, from a search of political identity and agency, and continued with an educational path with many great women on it, that made me believe in mutual aid, collective thinking, and strenth of local unities. I am using recordings i did on my way, many of which — songs. Visuals — me cutting my hair for the first time in mangrove forest of Algodoal island, Pará, North Brazil
Problem — video-essay about perception of climate crisis with connection to war. Shot by phone during travel and volunteering around South America, reflecting personal perception of relationships between people and environment in South America.
The video was made for and during Social Arts Festival 9-11 of December, Algodoal, Brazil
ZATO — final project of The Terraforming program, Strelka Institute. A speculative essay about borders on exapmle of closed soviet nuclear cities that was built and projected in soviet era for specific purposes.
Video was created collectively during second year of The Terraforming program, 2021, Armenia-Serbia
Laboratoria po prigitovleniyu suspensii (in russ) — ironic visual project about health and russian science (in russ.)
Farm and peace — video-essay about permaculture farm where I was volunteering during first months of Russian aggression in Ukraine
Ceramic project — a collection of ceramics
Pop-science projects
Cosmic order vs. chaos of Earth: how space and climate are connected — Science-talk (in russ.) in AIR gallery (art& science gallery of ITMO University, St Petersburg)
Zine LAYERS presentation and discussion (in russ) in AIR gallery (art& science gallery of ITMO University, St Petersburg):
Arctic studies, paleogeography and travels — Xena Poleshchuk — podcast for «Station North» (in russ.)
Interview for educational project «Antarctica project»
Video about young scientists on YouTube channel «Clever Russia»
Social projects and events:
— An antiwar discussion about Russian invasion of Ukraine, 3 of March 2022, Bogota, «Rat Trap»
— A cartoon in support of political prisoners made in collaboration with OVDINFO and Diana Mejerhold, December 2025
Was helping to organise:
— fundraising 2-days event for a dog shelter, Algodoal, Pará, Brazil
— Social Arts Festival 9-11/12/22, Algodoal, Pará, Brazil
— a workshop on ecological thinking through art practices, YutopiaLab fundation, Cali, Colombia
— a promo video for YutopiaLab fundation, Cali, Colombia
etc
List of scientific publications:
1. Poleshchuk K., Verkulich S. Holocene sea-level changes in Bunger Oasis (East Antarctica) // Problemy Arctiki I Antarctiki (Arctic and Antarctic issues). 2014. — № 100 (2) — p. 15 — 24 (In Russ.)
2. Polishchuk K.V., Verkulich S.R., Ezhikov I.S., Pushina Z.V. Postglacial relative sea level change at Fildes Peninsula, King George Island (West Antarctic). Ice and Snow. 2016; 56(1): 93-102. (In Russ.)
3. Poleshchuk K., Verkulich S. Reconstruction of Holocene sea-level changes in Bunger Oasis (East Antarctica) // Actualnye problem paleogeografii I stratigrafii pleystocena (Actual issues of Pleistocene palegograhy and stratigraphy. Moscow, — 2015. — C. 158 — 160 (In Russ.)
4. K. Poleshchuk, S. Verkulich, Z.Pushina. Holocene sea-level changes in Bunger Oasis, East Antarctica, as inferred by diatom assemblages in sediment cores from marine and freshwater basins, and coastal geomorphological evidences // Geophysical Research Abstracts — Vien, — 2014.
5. K. Poleshchuk, S. Verkulich, Z. Pushina, I. Jozhikov Holocene sea-level changes in King George Island, West Antarctica, by virtue of geomorphological coastal evidences and diatom assemblages of sediment sections // Geophysical Research Abstracts — Vien, — 2015.
6. Poleshchuk K., Verkulich S., Pushina Z. Comparison of glacial isostasy contribution to the sea level changes during the Holocene in West and East Antarctic regions // Geophysical Research Abstracts Vol. 18, EGU2016-10062, 2016
7. K. Poleshchuk, Z. Pushina, S. Verkulich, M.V. Dorozhkina. Diatoms in Quaternary sediments of Fildes Peninsula, King George Island (West Antarctica) // Voprosy sovremennoy algologii (Isuues of modern algology). — Zvenigorid — 2015 (In Russ.)
8. S. Verkulich, K. Poleshchuk, I. Jozhikov, Z. Pushina. Holocene sea-level changes in Antarctica based on paleogeographical data of Bunger Oasis (East Antarctica) and King George (West Antarctica) // Book of abstracts «Fundamental problems of Quaternary period, research results and main directions of new research”– Irkutsk, — 2015 (In Russ.)
9. K. Poleshchuk, S. Verkulich. Holocene relative sea-level changes in few regions of Antarctic margin and estimation of GIA effect. (Poster presentation, International symposium of the Cryosphere in a changing climate, February 2017, Wellington, New Zealand).
10. Poleshchuk K.V., Verkulich S.R., Pushina Z.V., Okunev A.S. The resultes of Holocene sediments of Dunderbukta, West Svalbard, based on diatom analysis // Book of abstracts of «International Youth Scientific Conference on the Polar Geodesy, Glaciology, Hydrology and Geophysics», May 17-18, 2018 — St Petersburg — 65 pp. (In Russ.)
11. Poleshchuk K.V., Verkulich S.R., Pushina Z.V., Okunev A.S. Holocene marine diatom assemblages of Dunderbukta, West Svalbard // Book of abstract «A complex environmental study of Svalbard and adjacent shelf», Murmansk, October 30 — November 2, 2018 — 95-97 pp. (In Russ.) DOI: 10.25702/KSC.978.5.91137.374.0
12. Poleshchuk K. Holocene sea-level changes in Antarctic margin and GIA estimation // PALSEA express (2020). Austermann J., Simms A., Barlow N., Shakun J., Rovere A. Virtual meeting, 15-16 Sept 2020.