About Me
Hi I'm Barbara (Basia) Mączka
I am an artist and researcher from Poland, currently based in Basel, Switzerland, and a graduate of the MA Transversal Design programme at FHNW. My practice investigates how hands-on engagement with materials opens new ways of understanding colour, ecology, and our relationships with the environments we inhabit.
Working with plants, natural pigments, inks, hand-painted animation, and participatory methodologies, I investigate the connections between ecology, memory, emotion, and material knowledge. I am particularly interested in how making becomes a way of thinking, how processes such as pigment extraction, fermentation, animation, and collective experimentation can deepen our relationships with materials, places, and the more-than-human world.
My work spans artistic research, workshops, exhibitions, publications, and collaborative projects. Rather than treating materials as tools for producing artworks, I approach them as active collaborators that invite observation, dialogue, and care. Through participatory practices, I create spaces where learning emerges through making, curiosity, and shared experience.
My recent research focused on the emotional and embodied relationships we develop with materials, exploring how colour is shaped not only by perception but also by memory, affect, and lived experience. This work proposes material practice as a way of generating knowledge, fostering ecological awareness, and building meaningful connections between people and their environments.