Say hi: lena.violetta.leitner@gmail.com

What if invasive mussels laid out the future for us with tarot cards?

An Integration Center for Migrated Plants would decide on the right to stay of “alien species”?

Or a ghostly mail account of a buried river would infiltrate the global platform Google Maps?

Lena Violetta Leitner 
invents, intervenes and cooperates.

Her works move between fiction and fact, humor and seriousness, subtlety and conspicuousness. They are usually created in intensive research and in close exchange with artists, designers and scientists.

This results in participatory installations, but also performances with plants, electronics and text. As the artist duo Kollektiv OutSight, Leitner works together with Steffi Baron-Neuhuber with sound, text, and language. With the ecofeminist and socio-artistic Danube Transformation Agency for Agency (DTAFA), she uses hybrid practices between visual art, design and science to advocate for a livable future for the Danube.

Plants and their socio-political dimension fascinate her, especially the connections between science (especially biology), language and society.

As head of the IZMP, she decides on the right to stay of alien plants.

In one of her most recent projects, Lena Violetta Leitner asks what is “natural” and what is “foreign”. She often sets up her projects as long-term studies that are reminiscent of scientific research structures.

A fictional research center – IZMP – is the focus. The transfer of general problem contexts to plants, the scientific language, the ironic joke and the multimedia context make this art a critique of social clichés and political stereotypes.

Christiane Kada / Petra Sieder-Grabner
Katalog – Landes Kunst und Kultur Preise, Steiermark 2019

exhibitions

2023

HOW TO BECOME AN ISLAND?
Solo Show DTAFA
OPENING 13.4., 7pm
Q21 Schauraum, Museumsquartier (AT)

02.12.22 – 19.11.23  
“Kunstraum Steiermark 2022. Scholarship Holders”
Neue Galerie Graz (AT)

2022

 “Kunstraum Steiermark 2022. Scholarship Holders”
Neue Galerie Graz (AT)

Delphi 2.0 : Phyto-Pythia
Solo Exhibition
Mz* Baltazar’s Lab (AT)

The Danube Sea – NOVI SAD 22 (RS) – European Capital of Culture 2022
How to become an island? as DTAFA

Lehartheater, Bad Ischl (AT)
WÜST MI PFLANZ’N? Experimentier-Werkstätte
Exhibition as Kollektiv OutSight in the frame of the Artist Residency auf! auf!

Lehartheater, Bad Ischl (AT)
PFLANZ’N
Composition and performance as Kollektiv OutSight

Athens Digital Arts Festival  (GR)
woodiana.today

State of Concept Athens (GR)
Where is the river? (residency research outcome of the Artist Residency Land Steiermark)

VBKÖ, Vienna (AT)
Lost. Element. Re-construction of the Witch.
13.01. – 13.02.

AA Collections, Vienna (AT)
BILLAA++
13.12. – 29.01.

2021

AA Collections, Vienna (AT)
BILLAA++
13.12. – 29.01.2022

Gallery SULUV, Novi Sad (RS)
May I introduce: Alien
25.10. – 05.11.

Improper Walls, Vienna (AT)
Hospitable Utopia
08.09. – 24.09.

Fabrikraum, Vienna (AT)
May I introduce: Alien(express)!
10.09. – 19.09.

Museum for Science and Technology, Belgrade (RS), Ars Electronica 
woodiana.today bei art+science2021
23.09. – 23.10.

Museum Ulm, Ulm (DE)
Kunstreichgewächse – Bitte gießen!
24.07. – 17.10.

Gallery Reflektor, Užice (RS)
Hospitable Utopia

das möbel & online, Vienna (AT)
Real Stories

2020

Angewandte Innovation Lab, Vienna (AT)
May I introduce: Alien
www.mayiintroduce-alien.com

auftakt festival für szenische texte, Cologne (DE)
Die Chor

Gallery Die Schöne, Vienna (AT)
Die Geburt des Museums der Migration – IZMP Showroom

AA Collections, Vienna (AT)
Light at the end of the tunnel

2019

Neue Galerie Graz (AT)    
Förderungspreis des Landes Steiermark für zeitgenössische bildende Kunst 2019 

EHESS Paris (FR)
Study Days 2019 – Green Aliens Under The Microscope. Lecture Performance.

Botanical Gardens Graz (AT) 
Solo Exhibition

2018

THE ESSENCE, Vienna (AT)    

Heldinnenzentrale, Vienna (AT)
Schlage Wurzeln, Verwurzle dich nicht (A Lovesong) with Maria Hera

2017

AA Collections, Vienna (AT)
CORPOREAL, Trio Exhibition with Andrea Palašti and Paloma Tendero

Wittgensteinhaus, Vienna (AT)
Vergessene Frauen – Hammerherrinnen (soundperformance and installation with Ela A. Sattler) 

Gallery U10, Belgrade (SRB)
Hacking the Network, Trio Exhibition with Maria Hera and Sejma Ferré

2016

Gallery Trebinje (BiH)
TV16

Amonhaus, Lunz am See (AT) Viertelfestival
Performance as Kollektiv OutSight

2015

Friday Exit, Vienna (AT)
I can’t connect at all – collective show Mz Baltazar’s Laboratory & Kollektiv OutSight

Mz Baltazar’s Laboratory, Vienna (AT)
Daily Diet – Duo Exhibition with Sejma Ferré

Redcarpet Showroom, Vienna (AT)
Tatorte – Solo Exhibition with Nora Staggl as Living Skirts

2014

Kunstverein Baden (AT)
pigons, manifests and more 

Nationalgallery Mala Stanice, Skopje (MKD)
Obsession – Exhibition and residency as Kollektiv OutSight

das weisse haus, Vienna (AT)
Contemporaries of the near future

2013

Biennale Sessions Giardini, Venedig (IT)
Vertikal 

das weisse haus, Vienna (AT)
digital frictions 

2012

New Zero Art Gallery, Yangon (MYA)
Myanmar Multimedia Festival

2010

City Museum, Skopje (MKD)
White Night 

City Museum, Graz (AT)
photo biennale 

residencies

2024
HIAP Helsinki – BMKÖS

2022
State of Concept Athens (GR) (grant by Land Steiermark)

auf! auf! with Kollektiv OutSight at Lehartheater, Bad Ischl (AT)

Novi Sad (European Capital of Culture) with DTAFA

2021
Gallery Reflektor, Užice (RS)

2017
Land Steiermark / Come on, Lunz am See

2016
Viertelfestival, Lunz am See

2015
Friday Exit as Kollektiv OutSight

2014
Nationalgallery Mala Stanica, Skopje as Kollektiv OutSight

In Parallel – Graz & Sarajevo

publicationS

“TREMATE” in Zine COAPPARATION I, II, III, ed. Claudia Reiche, Andrea Sick, thealit Bremen (2022)

Interview postcoronal Podcast (2020)

“Sprachlabor. Benimmkurs.”, LANDSTRICH Nr. 35 (2019)

Ausstellungstext für KulturKontakt Austria (2019)

Text for HERstory, KulturKontakt Austria (2018)

“Hammerherrin”, art book with E.A. Sattler (2018)

“Protokoll”, in Von Fluchten und Wiederfluchten (Hg. Artur Nickel), Geest-Verlag (2017)

“Eisen”, LANDSTRICH Nr.33 (2017)

“Entrinnerung”, Inszenierte Projekte, Edition Selene (2013)

“Clean Art”, Portable Exhibtion (Hg. Sejma Ferré) (2013)

awards, grants

2023
Mentoring Program Art, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna

2022
Start Scholarship Media Art (BMKÖS)

Ö1 awards “Fixing the Future” (with DTAFA)

Atelier grant, Styria

2020
Working grant, city of Vienna

2019
Working grant in the frame of the Promotional Prize for Contemporary Fine Art, Styria

2018
Mediaprize WIG, Vienna 
with Maria Hera and FEM

 

COLLECTIVES

2021/22 “Danube Transformation Agency for Agency”

founding member Kollektiv OutSight

2020/21 Question me & answer

female* artist index

VBKOE member