Scientific profile
Jacek J. Kolasiński is the founding Director of the Ratcliffe Incubator of Art + Design in the FIU College of Communication, Architecture + The Arts, is a Professor of Art at the Art + Art History Department at Florida International University where he previously served as the Department Chair for six years.
He came to the United States from Poland where he studied history and philosophy at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in International Relations. Kolasiński received his MFA and BFA from Florida International University in Miami, and his Ph.D. from the prestigious Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, Poland.
Kolasiński is an interdisciplinary artist and curator, whose work is rooted in an international dialogue between two worlds: the “Old World” of Europe in Krakow, and the “New World” of the United States in multicultural Miami. These convergent worlds create a running theme that surfaces in many of his works: the search for identity in the vortex of cultural displacement. Through his creative work, Kolasiński has tested complex trans-disciplinary collaborative productions, multimedia installations, single and multiple channel video projections, 3d digital fabrications, as a well as community-based, and site-specific projects. He is a research-based artist who actively engages with art historical and artistic communities.
Kolasiński’s artwork and curatorial projects have reached large international audiences through presentations and exhibitions in numerous venues including: the Teatro Colon, Buenos Aires, Argentina: Festival Internacional Cervantino, Guanajuato, Mexico; 61 Festival de Cannes – Short Film Corner; Cinema Politic, Barcelona, Spain; and Digital Fringe, Melbourne, Australia, Art Academy of Latvia, Vilnius Academy of Arts, Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, Tianjin University to name a few.
Kolasinski has been awarded a Florida Cultural Consortium Fellowship in the media and visual arts, the prestigious Kosciuszko Foundation Fellowship, and FIU Faculty Award for Excellence in Research & Creative Activities. In 2018, Prof. Kolasiński was made an honorary member (Academia Artium Latviensis Socius Honoris Causa) of the Art Academy of Latvia.