Johanna Bio

My name is Johanna Tysk and I was born in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1983. I currently reside in Malmö, where I recently moved after three years of studies and teaching in the Transdisciplinary Design/Strategic Design and Management programs at Parsons School of Design in New York City.

For as long as I can remember, my life has been a research project into the dynamics of human existence. I consider myself an empath, a systems thinker, a strategist and a creator, leading a constantly evolving life and practice.

Lucky for my research, I have always carried an innate desire for a deeper understanding of myself and the world around, never quite fitting into a system that premieres certain types of knowledge over others. Lucky to have been awarded Art student and Science student of the year in high school, then forced to pick sides, heart and brain always longing back towards a state of unity between the multiple lenses we can choose to describe the world and our place in it through.

Lucky for my research, my life path exposed me to more than one way to see. Moving between the multiethnic suburbs of Stockholm (Akalla/Kista/Tensta), urban Atlanta and cosmopolitan New York, I have had the chance to observe and experience a multiplicity of human perspectives, as well as the very real norms, power structures and boundaries that dictate our relationships to self, each other and society or the world at large. I have been lucky to study at world class institutions like Parsons in New York, Konstfack in Stockholm and Savannah College of Art and Design in Atlanta, but also learned to cherish the kind of knowledge you can only obtain through practice, lived experience, and inquiry into perspectives that never made it into the established spheres of knowledge production.

Lucky for my research, I have had my own worldview crashed and reconstructed multiple times. I am lucky to have used the tension of separate or conflicting realities to question, break down, reconstruct, innovate and create at the border of disciplinary, social and cultural boundaries… Lucky to have produced endless characters, visuals, visions and processes received and brought to life in the creative act of trying to forge a path towards a more human and connected life, for myself and those around me.

Lucky for my research, the quest for understanding never ends. I am lucky to again and again be humbled by that which I do not yet know or that which simply transcends the comprehension of our human minds. Lucky to for brief moments be allowed to co-create with the life force underneath this strange existence we call a human living.

Download the longer version of my CV by clicking the link to your left.