Meet Nathalie Karagiannis | Writer and artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Nathalie Karagiannis and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Nathalie, what role has risk played in your life or career?
Audacity is crucial in life and work. It allows openness to the unknown, or a propensity to unknowingness, desire, play (in its most serious guise, that is, the way children do it, being completely immersed in it), traversing our multiple fears, Without risk, there is no heightened sense of living. Whether we will it or not, change happens; we might as well make it happen. In her beautiful book ‘In Praise of Risk’, French philosopher and psychoanalyst, Anne Dufourmantelle, says the matter of life itself – living – is risk.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I’m a writer and visual artist. I initially studied law up to a master’s degree and hold a PhD in Social and Political Thought; I published academic books and articles for some years, while always writing poetry on the side. Then my poetry got published, and my children were born and suddenly life felt much more acute and urgent and choices had to be made. I enjoyed thinking about democracy, solidarity, and postcolonialism, but realised there was just enough time to do everything else too.

I am proud to have had the courage to leave academia, which guaranteed some security, and to try to make it in the areas of the visual arts and poetry. Now, after a few years, I am starting to enjoy some results and I realise my initial education and research has helped me in many ways, both intellectually and psychologically. Intellectually, my commitment to a certain way of doing politics and understanding ethics come from my student years, Psychologically, you need a strong sense of self-motivation when you write a doctoral thesis, and that’s exactly what you need when starting out in the riskier areas of the arts. Patience, trust in oneself and in one’s critical spirit, being able to work in isolation but also delegating parts of the work that can be completed by others are all lessons learned from an earlier life that come in handy now.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
So many people! My friends, my kids and family, my teachers, people whose name I never even knew but gave a helping hand, a piece of advice or simply a smile; the books I’ve read, the pictures I’ve watched, the landscapes that were offered….

Website: nathalie.karagiannis@gmail.com

Instagram: nathalie.karagiannis