Katarina Gotic, born in 1994 in Gradiška, Bosnia and Herzegovina, is a poet and interdisciplinary artist. She studied psychology and Neuroscience and worked for a while as a researcher of brain-computer-interfaces, a quality manager and a medical writer. In 2019, she moved to Berlin and slowly began, encouraged by the city's happening art scene, to write poetry. Her first book of poems "we need a breathing tongue between" is awaiting its publication with kith books. She currently works on a language/visual collage titled "leerlauf" and an erasure project "VENAC" in which she (de)constructs her family's socialist magazines. In 2023, Katarina received Arbeitsstipendium für nicht-deutsche Literatur for "leerlauf". She was also a finalist of the 2023 ZVONO Award, awarded to young visual and conceptual artists from Bosnia and Herzegovina.
What brought you to Berlin? Love? World politics? Or was it a coincidence?
The need to leave Tübingen. To Tübingen, the need to leave Bosnia.
What do you love about Berlin?
options / options / our flat / options / how languages mix / options / so much space / people / options / art / experiments / being a poet and surviving
What do you miss in Berlin?
Bosnian humour / creative swearing / mountains / mother / spontaneous encounters / reading hope from coffee grounds / nicknames we’re forever stuck with / red threads that protect kids from evil eyes / roasted chestnuts / river Sava / quince / rose hip / cherry plum / rakija from every cellar
What is your favorite spot in Berlin?
Spreeufer in Moabit for daily outings, Westhafen for desolate industrial landscapes (and almost being at sea), "Kühlspot" und "Sowieso" for jazz and Echtzeitmusik, Stadtbad Charlottenburg (Alte Halle) for forgetting the world
Would you say you are a different person in Berlin? A different translator? And if yes, in what way?
Berlin let me become a poet. Bosnia gave me all I can write about.
Which existing literary work do you wish you had written?
"My Life", Lyn Hejinian.
- 2024 Recherchestipendium für Übersetzerinnen und Übersetzer, Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalt, Berlin
- 2024 “Conceptual Photography Award.” Sarajevo Photography Festival. Sarajevo,
- 2023 Arbeitsstipendium für nicht-deutschsprachige Literatur, Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Europa, Berlin
- 2023 PAF Award finalist, Pop Art Festival Sarajevo. Sarajevo, 2023
- 2023 ZVONO-Preis für junge bildende Künstler*innen aus Bosnien und Herzegowina, KRAK (Bihać), Residency Unlimited (New York), Trust for Mutual Understanding (New York)
- 2016 - 2019, Max-Planck Society Fellowship, Max-Planck-Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen