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 of residence for foreign plants.
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?
TEXTS
Julia Katharina Thiemann: curator, 2023
In her artistic practice, Lena Violetta Leitner addresses socio-political relationships of our human coexistence by means of how we deal with and think about plants, animals and the nature that surrounds us. Varying levels of individual, personal behavior, feedback, for example, with individual, concrete plants, as well as overall societal developments are interconnected in her artistic works in an enigmatic way, thus critically and humorously reflecting the interdependent conditions of our complex reality of life in the postanthropocene.
With her mostly participation-oriented and collectively created art, Lena Violetta Leitner aesthetically explores cross-species border crossings and thereby questions our human social coexistence and our self-image in the structure of our surrounding world.
Lena Violetta Leitner‘s ironic exaggerations always harbor an explosive core of future-oriented fiction that could make us rethink and reshape our world.
Christiane Kada / Petra Sieder-Grabner: Landes Kunst und Kultur Preise, Steiermark 2019
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.
Residencies
2024
HIAP Helsinki (FI) – Federal Chancellery of Austria
2022
State of Concept Athens (GR), Province of Styria
auf! auf! as Kollektiv OutSight, Lehartheater, Bad Ischl (AT)
Novi Sad (RS, Europea Capital of Culture) as DTAFA
2021
Gallery Reflektor, Užice (RS)
2017
Province of Styria / Come on, Lunz am See (AT)
2016
Viertelfestival, Lunz am See (AT)
2015
Friday Exit as Kollektiv OutSight, Vienna (AT)
2014
Nationalgallery Mala Stanica, Skopje (MKD) as Kollektiv OutSight
In Parallel – Graz & Sarajevo (AT/BiH)
Awards
Acquisition Award, Province of Styria, 2023
Start Grant Media Art, Federal Chancellery of Austria, 2022
Mentoringprogram Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, 2022/23
Award Ö1 Reparatur der Zukunft with DTAFA, 2022
INTRA – artistic research project with DTAFA, University of Applied Arts Vienna 2021/22
Working Grant, City Vienna, 2020
Working Grant, Province of Styria, Promotional Prize for contemporary fine art, 2019
Mediaprize WIG with Maria Hera and FEM, 2018
PART OF:
Founding member of DTAFA
Founding member of Kollektiv OutSight
2020/21 Question me & answer
part of the female* artist index
member of VBKOE
member of Künstlerhaus
SOLO SHOWS
(also as a collective, presentations)
2023, Artist Talk, DTAFA, Warsaw Under Construction 15, Österreichisches Kulturforum Warschau (PL)
2023, HOW TO BECOME AN ISLAND?, DTAFA, Q21 Schauraum, MQ Vienna (AT)
2022, DELPHI 2.0 (phyto-pythia), Mz* Baltazar’s Lab, Vienna (AT)
2022, WÜST MI PFLANZ’N? Experimentier-Werkstätte, Kollektiv OutSight, Lehartheater, Bad Ischl (AT)
2022, PFLANZ’N, Komposition, sound performance as Kollektiv OutSight, Lehartheater, Bad Ischl (AT)
2022, Where is the river?, State of Concept Athens (GR)
2021, May I introduce: Alien!, DTAFA, Gallery SULUV, Novi Sad (RS)
2021, May I introduce: Alienexpress, DTAFA, Fabrikraum, Vienna (AT)
2020, May I introduce: Alien!, Angewandte Innovation Lab, Vienna (AT)
2019, Integrationszentrum für Migrierte Pflanzen – The Showroom, Botanical Gardens Graz (AT)
2016, Virtual Soundmap, Performance as Kollektiv OutSight, Viertelfestival, Amonhaus, Lunz am See (AT)
2015, I can’t connect at all, as Mz Baltazar’s Laboratory & Kollektiv OutSight, Friday Exit, Vienna (AT)
2015, Tatorte, with Nora Staggl as Living Skirts, Redcarpet Showroom, Vienna (AT)
2014, Obsession, as Kollektiv OutSight, Nationalgallery Mala Stanica, Skopje (MKD)
Duo- / Trio- Ausstellungen
2018, Schlage Wurzeln, Verwurzle dich nicht (A Lovesong) with Maria Hera, Heldinnenzentrale, Vienna (AT)
2017, CORPOREAL, with Andrea Palašti und Paloma Tendero, AA Collections, Vienna (AT)
2017, Hacking the Network, with Maria Hera and Sejma Ferré, Gallery U10, Belgrade (SRB)
2015, Daily Diet, with Sejma Ferré, Mz Baltazar’s Laboratory, Vienna (AT)
GROUP SHOWS
2023
11. & 12.11.
Vienna Art Week: Open Studio Days
with Alexandra Tatar
studio Lena Violetta Leitner, Vienna (AT)
Presentation at Lobau Listening Comprehensions
Kleine Stadtfarm, Vienna (AT)
as DTAFA
05.10. – 25.10.23
OPEN FLOOR
Kunsthalle Exnergasse, WUK, Vienna (AT)
exhibition with DTAFA
02.12.22 – 19.11.23
Kunstraum Steiermark 2022. Stipendiat*innen
Neue Galerie Graz (AT)
Looking for Ilissos with Lily Hassioti
2022
The Danube Sea – NOVI SAD 22 (RS) – European Capital of Culture
How to become an island? as DTAFA
Athens Digital Arts Festival, Athens (GR)
woodiana.today as DTAFA
Lost Element. Re-construction of the Witch.
VBKÖ, Vienna (AT)
TREMATE
Kuration: Anka Leśniak, TFR-Archive
with Anka Leśniak, Valerie Habsburg, Anna Bochkova
BILLAA++
AA Collections, Vienna (AT)
curation: David Hassbach and Georgij Melnikov
2021
Hospitable Utopia vienna ed.
Improper Walls, Vienna (AT)
curation: Ale Zapata, Urtė Špeirokaitė, Justina Špeirokaitė
with Margit Busch, Aurianne Chevandier, Dejan Clement, Eugenie Desmedt, Milica Dukić, Jelena Marta Glišić, Olivier Hölzl, Els Van Houtert, Christos Kyritopoulos-Ninas, Georgij Melnikov, Nenad Nedeljkov, Lindsey Nicholson, Radomirka Siljanovski, Verena Tscherner, Miloš Vučićević, Márton Zalka
art+science2021
Museum for Science and Technology, Belgrade (RS),
woodiana.today mit DTAFA
Ars Electronica
Festival for Digital Ecologies
woodiana.today with DTAFA
Kunstreichgewächse – Bitte gießen!
Museum Ulm, Ulm (DE)
IZMP – Sprachlabor
curation: nextmuseum.io
Hospitable Utopia
Gallery Reflektor, Užice (RS)
curation: Ale Zapata, Urtė Špeirokaitė, Justina Špeirokaitė
Real Stories
das möbel & online, Vienna (AT)
Angelo 1796
curation: Question me & answer
2020
auftakt festival für szenische texte
Cologne (DE)
Die Chor
Die Geburt des Museums der Migration
Gallery Die Schöne, Vienna (AT)
curation: Elena Messner
IZMP, The Presentation
Light at the end of the tunnel
AA Collections, Vienna (AT)
curation: Georgij Melnikov
mit Patrícia Chamrazová, Aklima Iqbal, Olga Shapovalova, Alexandra Tatar, Hui Ye
2019
Förderungspreis des Landes Steiermark für zeitgenössische bildende Kunst 2019
Neue Galerie Graz (AT)
IZMP, das Sprachlabor
Study Days 2019
EHESS Paris (FR)
Green Aliens Under The Microscope. Lecture Performance.
2018
THE ESSENCE,
Vienna (AT)
IZMP, das Sprachlabor
2017
Vergessene Frauen
Wittgensteinhaus, Vienna (AT)
curation: Marion Elias
Hammerherrinnen (Soundperformance und Installation mit Ela A. Sattler)
2016
TV16
Gallery Trebinje (BiH)
2014
pigons, manifests and more
Kunstverein Baden (AT)
my momma told me to hold it back
Contemporaries of the near future
das weisse haus, Vienna (AT)
2013
Vertikal
Biennale Sessions, Venice (IT)
my momma told me to hold it back & funktionieren.produzieren.präsentieren.
digital frictions
das weisse haus, Vienna (AT)
my momma told me to hold it back & funktionieren.produzieren.präsentieren.
2012
Myanmar Multimedia Festival
New Zero Art Gallery, Yangon (MYA)
de/membering
2010
White Night
Stadtmuseum Skopje (MKD)
zeit.heilt.nicht.
photo biennale
Stadtmuseum Graz (AT)
zeit.heilt.nicht.