Sanja Pahoki

Sanja Pahoki uses everyday mediums (photography, video and text) to explore observations from everyday life. More recently she has been working with neon. Existential issues such as the nature of self, identity and the role of anxiety are recurring themes. Pahoki’s practise is usually directed at the moments of ‘losing it’ and the efforts to ‘keep it together’. As the initial inspiration for a lot of the work has its roots in the autobiographical, humour is sometimes employed as a strategy to focus the attention away from the personal to shared universal concerns.

Sanja Pahoki was born in Osijek, Croatia. She migrated to Melbourne, Australia in the early 1970s where she continues to live. In 2006, Pahoki completed a MFA from the Victorian College of the Arts where she also works as a Sessional Lecturer in the Photography Department. Pahoki has exhibited her work both nationally and internationally. She was a committee member of Kings Artist Run Initiative and studio artist at Gertrude Contemporary Artist Space. In 2008 she attended a studio residency in Reykjavik, Iceland. In 2010-11 she went back to Scandinavia to do a 3-month studio residency in Helsinki, Finland.