Graduate of the Faculty of Philology of the University of Lodz.
Member of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland for the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth terms. She has held her parliamentary seat continuously since 1991. She has been a permanent member of the Sejm Committee on Culture and Media.
As a journalist, she worked in Dziennik Łódzki and Łódź television and, after her dismissal, in Głos Robotniczy, covering mainly light industry.
From 1981 to 1991, she was a member of the NSZZ Solidarność, at the 1st Solidarność Congress in the Olivia Hall where she acted as rapporteur. After leaving the PZPR on 4 December 1981, she was briefly interned on 13 December and banned from working in the media, education and cultural institutions.
In 1989, as the first editor-in-chief, she created the Łódź supplement to "Gazeta Wyborcza".
In 1990, she joined the ROAD. She later belonged to the Democratic Union and the Freedom Union, and has been active in the Civic Platform since 2001. She is a member of the National Council of the Civic Platform and the PO Regional Board. Until 2006, she headed the board of the Łódź region of the Civic Platform.
In 1990, she was elected to the Łódź City Council. In 1991, she won her first seat as an member of the Sejm by running for the Democratic Union. In 1993 and 1997 she successfully ran for re-election. In 1997, she was a candidate for the post of Minister of Culture and Arts in Jerzy Buzek's cabinet. She has been elected to the Sejm since 2001 as a representative of the Civic Platform. In 2015, she ran for the eighth time to the Sejm from fourth place on the list, winning 5,000 more votes than in the previous election and holding her parliamentary seat for the eighth consecutive term. She is the only person in the Polish Sejm with such seniority.
In 2010, on the recommendation of the Civic Platform parliamentary club, she became a member of the TVP programme council. In 2014, she was elected as a chairperson of this body and resigned from the council in 2016.
Iwona Śledzińska-Katarasińska always stands up for citizens' rights with a number of parliamentary interventions. Thanks to her involvement in the development of Łódź culture, among other things, the redevelopment of Księży Młyn has begun, and the National Centre of Film Culture in Łódź has been established to restore the importance of Łódź film tradition.
Iwona Śledzińska-Katarasińska died in 2024.