NS-Doku Zentrum, TO BE SEEN  Foto: © orla connolly

Artist Statement

Ranging across photography, installations, collages and sculptures and social art projects, her practice negotiates a vast openness in conjunction with an intense focus on social realities, visibilities and cultural codes. Lena Rosa Händle’s works critically reflect on socio-critical, political, historical and ecological issues and foreground, utopian potentials for more livable futures.

 

Her work was has been widely shown in Vienna and abroad, in exhibitions such as Intergalactic Sisters, Fotogalerie im Rathaus, Graz (2024), TO BE SEEN. Queer Lives 1900-50, NS-Documentation Center, Munich, Germany (2022/23);  Unreleased Materials/ErrorScapes, 6th Triennial of expanded media, Arts Association of Serbia (ULUS), Belgrade/Serbia (2022), NO FEAR EVERY BODY, Kunstraum Ortloff, Leipzig (2022), Thank You for Shopping with Us!, Hybrid Artfair, Madrid (2021), Handel & Wandel, Schöneberg Museum, Berlin (2021), Kunst(re_public), Halle 14, Baumwollspinnerei, Leipzig, (2020); To Care is Revolutionary, FOTO WIEN, (2019); Guerilla der Aufklärung, Rotor, Graz (2019), Quidarse es revolucionario, Centro de Arte Faro Cabo Mayor, Santander, Spain (2018), Lesbian Visions, Schwules Museum Berlin, (2018),  I (We) Feel Seen, SOHO in Ottakring, Wien (2018), I Dreamed We Were Alive, Kunst Haus Wien (2017), WIN/WIN, purchase of the Cultural Foundation of the Free State of Saxony, Halle 14, Spinnerei, Leipzig (2016), Uncanny Materials, Founding Moments of Art Education, xhibit, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (2016), Reclaiming Gestures, Kubus EXPORT – der Transparente Raum, Wien (2015), (2012 ), Il popolo delle libertà, Italienische Reise/Viaggio in Italia, Werkschauhalle, Leipzig (2012), Laughing Inverts, Alpha Nova Galerie Futura, Berlin (2012), among many others.

 

Lena Rosa Händle has been awarded with a number of scholarships, among others of the Federal Chancellery of the Republic of Austria State Scholarship Photography (2021), Start-Scholarship Photography (2018), work Scholarship of the Culture Foundation of the Free State of Saxony (2018) and the Rosa Luxemburg Scholarship for outstanding students (2011-13).

 

She was Artist in Residence of the Federal Chancellery of the Republic of Austria, in Berlin, FREE AWAY (2025), London (2022) and New York City (2017), as well as Artist in Residence of Orbital/das weisse haus in Santander, Spain (2018), among others.

 

She is author of the artist book Laughing Inverts (Kehrer Publisher, 2015) which was nominated for the German Photobook Award, (2016) and she was nominated for the Erste Bank Award (2019).

 

Her work is part of the Dresden State Art Collections/ SKD: Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, (Germany), the collection of the Vienna Museum/ Sammlung Wien Museum, (Austria),  the state collection of the Federal Ministry of the Republic of Austria (BMKOES), the Photographic Collection of the Museum der Moderne Salzburg (Austria), the Collection of the Gay Museum (Schwules Museum), Berlin (Germany) and the Collection of the District Museum Tempelhof- Schöneberg , Berlin (Germany).

From 2018–2024 she was studio artist and part of the studio program of das weisse haus, art association for contemporary art.

Since 2005 she teaches in different formats and contexts and was University assistant at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (2013-17). She was invited for lectures and workshops at  University of Applied Art Vienna (2025), University Wien (2025), KUNST HAUS Wien (2024, 2020), Austrian Cultural Forum London (2022), Academy of Visual Arts Vienna (2021), Westlicht- Center of Photography, Vienna (2019), Academy of Visual Arts, Leipzig (2017), University of Hawaii at Manoa, USA (2014) among others.

She has curated and co-curated exhibitions and symposia in Leipzig (2012, 2006) and Counter/Acting Self-Organised Universitities, Kunsthalle Wien/ Academy of Visual Arts Vienna, (2014) at VBKO, Vienna (2023) and Fluc, Vienna (2017) among others.

 

She was part of juries for the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (2013-17); das weisse haus, art association for contemporary art (2023) and The VIENNALE, Austrias most important international film festival (2024).

She is member of IG-Bildende Kunst, VBKO and Bildrecht Vienna.

 

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