Iro Kraija Karavia
F R A G M E N T S
29.10.26
Athens-based artist Iro Kraija Karavia makes furniture and installations from thin metal, light and pixelated graphics, shaped by a background in architecture.
For our readers encountering your work for the first time, please take us through your background.
I am an independent designer and artist based in Athens. Before I began creating in the physical world, I explored digital media and spatial research, drawing on my background in architecture and my theoretical questions spanning metahumanity, queer and trans studies, and DIY politics.
As a designer, I am always drawn back to the question of functionality, repeatedly asking myself: Do I pursue function, and if so, which function? As furniture is currently my main field of design, I am trying to navigate a more esoteric and symbolic extension of functionality through form, materiality, light, and ownership.
IK
Where do you draw inspiration from?
I feel that my inspiration is something very fluid. It becomes more vivid when I have the privilege of spending time with myself. In my recent past, a huge inspiration of mine was my teenage years, feelings and memories. At the moment, I am very curious about semiology, symbolism, and the relationship between something that is semiotically very common and something that is completely unknown.
IK
Tell us about your installation, Endless Reach, at the Okay Space, Athens.
Endless Reach, an exhibition at Okay Space in Athens, curated by Captain Stavros alongside Andrianna Mila, was a duo show where I unveiled my younger self as an artist, exhibiting work created over the past five years.
The entire exhibition felt like a journey through dreamscapes, uncharted maps, imaginary languages, and the mythical spaces of our imagination. For me, it marked a turning point where I left my past self behind as an artist, only to rediscover it through new formats, narratives, and deeper personal involvement.
IK
In your recent installation, text me back, i <3 u, you combine methods of physical and digital art. Can you tell us more about this?
text me back, i <3 u, installation presented at MOMus Museum, was an homage to my teenage fantasy of love.
The installation was, in a way, a teenage bedroom, the space where you first experience love and romantic feelings. These feelings were considered “inappropriate” by society, family, etc. I remember hiding in my room with my phone, sending love messages and waiting for answers that probably never came.
The whole installation was an attempt to create a chatroom - a room, half digital, half physical installation, where soft and cold materials come together through the light and aesthetics of the early digital era.
IK
What’s next for Iro Kraija Karavia?