Natalya Pershina Yakimanslaya (Gluklya) was born in Leningrad, lives and works in St. Petersburg and Amsterdam. Shortly after graduating from the Mukhina Academy of Art and Design, together with Olga Egorova (Tsaplya) she became a co-founder of an artist collective The Factory of Found Clothes (FFC) which uses installation, performance, video, text and ’social research’ to illustrate the concept of “fragile” — relationships between internal and external and private and public. In 2002, they wrote their manifesto: “The place of the artist is at the side of the weak.” FFC worked together for 10 years and in 2012 Gluklya took the leadership of the group. Since 2003 Gluklya is an active member of Chto Delat? group.  

In her projects, Gluklya often uses clothes as a tool to build a connection between art and everyday life. Addressing the personal stories of her characters, she analyses the relationship between the private and the public, exposing the conflict between the inner world of a person and the political system (performance 'Debates of Division: When The Private Becomes Public' as a part of the public program at the Manifesta 10, 2014). 

In her project 'Unemployment Utopian Union' (2012) Gluklya discovers frontiers between inner world and social structure making visible the fragility of the mankind and the vulnerability of a personality. She constructs situations for an encounter of different social groups -  illegal migrants and ballet dancers, pensioners and students, who wouldn't not have an opportunity to meet in an ordinary life. In 'Unemployment Utopian Union' she encourages the process of self-organisation and learns about capacity of different minorities and marginal communities.

Gluklya’s work has been exhibited in Russia and abroad, including at the VOLTA8, Basel (2012); MUMOK, Vienna (2012); Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden Baden (2011); Shedhalle, Zurich (2011); SMART Project Space, Amsterdam (2011); Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid (2011); Kunsthalle, Vienna (2011); ICA, London (2010); National Center for Contemporary Art, Moscow (2006); Solo show «Wings of migrants, Gallery Akinci, Amsterdam (2012); Solo show «Utopian Unions», MOMMA, Moscow (2013).

At the moment Gluklya is a recipient of a fellowship in visual art awarded  by The Joseph Brodsky Memorial Fund. The fellowship allows her to spend 3 months in Venice and Rome. Being in Venice she conducts an extensive research for her new site-specific project "Ideal Society of Gondoliers'.

Gluklya's residency at GeoAIR was supported by CEC ArtsLink and the Black Sea Trust for Regional Cooperation.