Alumni Stories show how students take the ISP Mission into the world and continue to live by the school’s values. Aleksandra Artamonovskaja (Class of 2009) has lived in the United Kingdom for over a decade and is very much a changemaker in the art world.
Aleksandra Artamonovskaja (Class of 2009) is the founder of Electric Artefacts, a London-based studio working with digital artists, NGOs, and market players to curate and produce NFT projects and she also leads marketing efforts at the distributed gaming company Fragcolor. An ambassador for.ART, the digital address for the arts community, Aleksandra is actively engaged in the creative industry’s dialogue for the evaluation and monetization of art through distributed systems.
Aleksandra reflects on what she called “a dear point in time” at ISP. She also shares details of her post ISP journey and passions for art and Blockchain technology.
“ISP gave me a great foundation for the future, a real wholesome understanding, and helped me stand my ground, be creative, and take risks.”
- Where in the world are you and what are you doing?
I’m in London, England, living in West London to be precise! I’ve been living in London for quite a long time now – for over ten years.
- What are your earliest memories of being an ISP student?
I don’t know if ‘earliest’ is the correct word. I came to ISP to do the IB. When I was younger we moved quite a lot, and I’d been to other international schools in Prague and Ukraine. I’d tried to get into ISP a little earlier but it was always pretty full at the time.
- You completed the IB program at ISP – what did you take from the program to what you did when you left?
It might not answer the question directly but my most fond memories go beyond the ‘academic’ parts of the IB. From the CAS (Community, Activity, Service) part of the diploma, one memory that sticks out is when a group of us went to Hungary working with an organization called ‘Habitat for Humanity,’ helping to construct homes for the homeless.
I also remember greatly enjoying the sports program and as a keen tennis player, I loved the fact there were courts on campus. I used to play all the time with my friends. All that said, I think ISP gave me a great foundation for the future, a real wholesome understanding, and helped me stand my ground, be creative, and take risks.
- Was there something or someone at ISP that stimulated your interest in what you went on to do?
I remember being particularly stimulated by a ‘core’ IB course – Theory of Knowledge. Maybe unsurprisingly given what I do now, I was an art student as well. I don’t, however, think my talents particularly shined during those classes, even though I have got to quite an advanced stage in the art world in career terms. Looking back, economics was my favorite topic – and I suppose it is a strange combination but I’ve always looked at the art world through somewhat economic eyes.
I thought about art in relation to concepts like opportunity cost and market ineffectiveness and it has kind of led me to where I am now. If we look at the way that other art forms – such as the movement of the music industry from records and CD form to cloud-based players, and the digitalisation of literature through e-books – I thought why not art? Art has perhaps the biggest potential – it is maybe a matter of it catching up with the others.
So maybe looking back to my school days – it was a bit unusual to be into art and economics but it has in part led me to ‘my thing’ – which is art and tech – interests that resulted in my career for .ART – the art world’s digital domain and founding my own art organization.
- What are your favourite non-academic memories of ISP – do you keep in touch with old friends from the school?
I have great memories – Prague is beautiful and it was a fantastic place to be a teenager. We had a lot of fun. It was a dear point in time, I had lots of friends from ISP and also from other international schools in Prague. It is always a warm memory.
I don’t really get back to the city as much as I used to, obviously there is the pandemic now but it is also that my family no longer live in the Czech Republic and a lot of friends are living elsewhere too. I went to Prague for work about a month ago and that was cool – particularly as the event – Non-fungible Castle (NFC) – was hosted at the beautiful Lobkowicz Castle by another fellow ex-ISP student William Lobkowicz. In the pre-covid days I also was fortunate enough to be part of the last London ISP Alumni reunion, which was kindly organized by Larissa from the year above (Larissa Batt, Class of 2008).
- Future plans – what do you intend to do in the medium- to long-term future and what do you think you take from ISP for the rest of your life?
I’m happy with what I’m doing and would like to see the creative Blockchain ecosystem we’re building grow to help a wider range of creators across art and gaming. NFTs really are a revolution in art and other fields and it’s exciting to be involved! I’m always looking out for the next project. In ISP terms, I’d love to make more connections with the ISP Alumni network, particularly with people with our international mindset who are involved in related fields to mine.
