Polina is an artist, educator, and community organizer whose work focuses on regenerative ecology, liberatory pedagogy, and transformative justice. Born in Russia and raised in the Bronx, she worked nationally and internationally as a filmmaker, humanitarian aid worker, and teacher. Before moving back to New York, Polina founded and ran an experimental democratic school in Columbia, Missouri and created NEIGHBORS, a community art space in a storefront in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She was a member of the Dirt Palace, a feminist art collective in Providence, Rhode Island.
Polina has also helped start community gardens, taught art and film at Brown University, University of Wisconsin, and Stephens College, and was the Education and Community Engagement Director at the True/False Film Fest, an international documentary festival. She currently lives with her family and kin in the village of Red Hook where she tends a medicinal herb garden and community apothecary.