Irina Zadov (they/them) is an artist, educator, and cultural organizer. They are a queer post-Soviet Jewish immigrant and settler on the unceded territories of the Three Fires Confederacy: Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi. Their practice explores themes of diasporism, state violence, community resistance, and healing. Irina’s creative practice is rooted in collaboration and co-creation with Black, Indigenous, immigrant, and LGBTQIA+ communities. Their public programming, youth work, and cultural practice has been featured in and co-created with such institutions as: Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago Art Department, Smart Museum of Art, National Museum of Mexican Art, DuSable Museum of African American History, South Side Community Art Center, Cambodian American Heritage Museum and Killing Fields, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago Freedom School, Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, AMFM, Englewood Line, Chicago Public Library, Chicago Public Parks, 6018North, Chicago Cultural Center, Cambodian Institute of Peace in Cambodia, and TRANSITIONS Festival of Jewish Contemporary Arts in Berlin, Germany.
Photo by Zakkiyyah Najeeba