Kai Sebek

Photo credit: Tereza Vaňková

In residence: February - March 2027

Kai Sebek is a Czech visual artist, photographer and illustrator based in Prague. Her interdisciplinary practice focuses on environmental storytelling, bringing together documentary photography, illustration, narrative and field-based research to interpret scientific and ecological themes.

Sebek is the creator of Woven Worlds, a long-term art–science project exploring real ecosystems that can appear almost otherworldly. Grounded in field research and collaboration with scientists and local communities, the project translates scientific knowledge and ecological processes into visual narratives accessible to wider audiences.

In recent years, her practice has expanded through fieldwork in remote environments, particularly polar regions and volcanic Atlantic islands. Through these encounters, she documents changing relationships between people and their environments, from the legacies of whaling cultures to contemporary scientific research and conservation. Her work brings factual knowledge together with narrative storytelling, using curiosity and imagination to open new ways of engaging with fragile and changing environments.

During her residency at Artica Svalbard, Sebek will conduct research and gather stories for the Arctic chapter of the developing Woven Worlds encyclopedia, planned for publication in 2029. Scientific research is integral to the project, which explores how complex ecological subjects can be communicated through storytelling while remaining grounded in scientific knowledge.

Through photography, field research, interviews and the study of archival and collection materials, as well as potential exchanges with local scientists and communities, Sebek will investigate the rapid ecological changes taking place in Svalbard as a result of climate change and their impact on local biodiversity. She will translate this research into the visual and narrative language of Woven Worlds, creating fictional worlds and imagined species that remain rooted in the environments and ecological processes they represent.

Alongside this, Sebek will explore Svalbard’s cultural heritage and the stories of people who have lived and worked across the archipelago, considering how human histories intersect with its changing environment.

Sebek will also use the returning polar day and its shifting light to continue her performative photographic series Modern Knights. Featuring fictional figures in armour designed in response to the environments they inhabit, the series acts as a companion to Woven Worlds, exploring ideas of personal responsibility, environmental stewardship and our individual capacity to respond to ecological change.

Website: https://kaisebek.com/ilustration

Instagram: @kaisebek