‘We do not have to be long in the woods to experience the always rather anxious impression of “going deeper and deeper” into a limitless world. Soon, if we do not know where we are going, we no longer knew where we are’.[1]
"I was born in North Macedonia, at the time known as Republic of Macedonia - previously part of the Former Yugoslavia. Growing up in communism felt free and you were able to move across borders without many problems. Sadly the war in Yugoslavia forced me to move, an opportunity opened up and in February 1992 I travelled to UK and started my studies. In September 1992 I enrolled at Central School of Speech and Drama, which was very new art foundation course based in Camden Town and my life began in the UK. From 1993-1996, I went to Glasgow School of Art where I completed my BA Fine Art in Sculpture; and subsequently between 1996-1998 I attended the Royal College of Art where I completed my MA in Sculpture.
I am interested in the topics and areas of life that people ordinarily find it hard to talk about – death, disease and religion to name recent examples. I’ve often wondered where this desire comes from - I think it’s in part my natural curiosity and in part growing up in a communist country (Macedonia) where certain topics were out of bounds. Freedom of expression, asking difficult questions, using difficult materials, revealing the hidden and looking behind and below are variety of the themes that inform all my work. My early works have included excavations, planting trees upside down, making carpets out of watercress or fir cones, using animal skin and bones; all aiming to explore materiality, taking the ordinary and making it extraordinary, and adding the precious (like gold leaf) to the mundane.
My major focus is my interest in space, in particular a hidden space, space that we don’t pay attention to or are not aware of. Starting from a very young age I was fascinated with the underworld a space that we cannot inhabit, such as burial grounds and my interest in exposing this world of habitat, curiosity to what really happens at 6 feet under. Macedonia forestry is a significant portion of the country's land use and is traditionally an agricultural country, and its influences on my work is clear in many ways.
I have a long established, existing and continuing concern in my work focusing on the environment. Trees have long been a profound source of inspiration in my sculptural work, representing both the strength and vulnerability of the natural world. My deep-rooted love for trees and a continuing concern for the state of our forests have led me to work with diseased or naturally fallen trees. Through uncovering they roots systems and turning them upside down, I explore the presence of trees as living memory and silent witnesses to environmental change. My work aims to raise awareness, evoke emotional connection, and prompt reflection on our role in protecting these vital, often overlooked, guardians of the earth.
I have created projects from Re-Evolution (Glasgow, 1996), a tree down 3 floors of the Mackintosh stairwell, Ambush (New Forest, 2000) an excavated tunnel, with glazed ceiling, Resuscitare (Mottisfont, Hampshire 2013), inverted trees in a circle, Kilmardinny Tree (Bearsden, Scotland 2017) with intricate details based on archival pattern book, Rapture (Nymans, 2016) offering a dramatic addition to the landscape, Eurydice Prevails (University of Nottingham 2019) a rewriting of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, The Gilded Elm (Brighton, 2023), where I creatively conserved a diseased dead elm tree, and I’ve developed work which responds to nature and place.
For example: Ambush, a project I created in the New Forest, gave visitors the direct experience of going under the earth, encountering the darkness, moisture and narrowness of tunnels positioned below two mature trees. My aim was to create a different perspective of seeing the underworld as another living space; something inaccessible becoming accessible, and liken the tunnels to a womb. In this mysterious subterranean world, riddled with references to ‘myth, birth and growth, underworlds and death’, visitors find themselves challenged to enter a relationship with ‘that which is normally unseen’. I thrive on challenges, ‘without them, I find it very hard work.’ I learn with every new work I make. The materials I use for my sculpture often have an existing link or history to the specific place and/or environment, which often results in new and unusual methods of working."
Elpida Hadzi-Vasileva 2025