about
In recent projects, she has addressed how shared ideals of collective living are formed and sustained, and how they come to an end. Tensions, conflicts, and emotional complexities in groups are the things that often resist documentation. Herbstein brings into question how communal histories are shaped by not only what is recorded and preserved, but also by what remains unresolved, unspoken, or difficult to contain within conventional archival frameworks.
She works across a range of different medium - film, architectural installation, sculpture, archival research and social practice. She recently published the book Slamming Doors: on falling out and fighting back in a housing crisis, co-edited with Mason Leaver-Yap.
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Herbstein studied Environmental art at the Glasgow School of Art, building-site construction at the City of Glasgow College, and is a founding member of Slaghammers, an educational metal workshop based in Glasgow. In 2024–25, she was a Research Fellow at the University of Amsterdam and Framer Framed, and was a resident at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten (2021–2023).
She is currently at the Atelier Holsboer residency at Cité des Arts international in Paris until February 2027