Ksenia Yurkova is an artist, curator, and researcher living in Austria. She considers her leading artistic media to be text, photography, video, and installation. Yurkova started her practice as a researcher in the field of political theory and communication theory. The main focus of her interest for a long time was communication and language: the varieties of its substance, the possibility of conversion, its mythological aspect, stereotyping (the question of personal and political self-identification and identification by others), problems of memory, attitudes, and reliance. Lately, the artist has been researching the phenomenon of affect in its autonomous bodily emanation; in its personal and political registers. She focuses on how a stage of individual perception, to which one can relate memory, traumatic recollection, and problems of identity construction, transforms itself into affects of the political body. Coming a long way from political and cultural journalism, Ksenia settled into individual artistic and research practice through organising and curating cultural and art events, which allows the vital critical distance for observation and work with contemporary issues. Her approach is based on methods of language appropriation, over-affirmation, self-reflection, and self-criticism through ironic components inevitably added to the most pressing matters. As an artistic director, Yurkova worked in St. Petersburg-based exhibition centre Tkachi until it was closed due to political censorship. Nonetheless, Ksenia didn’t give up socially engaged practice and launched a festival-laboratory Suoja/ Shelter in Finland and an artist-in-residence research program InSILo in Austria with Emergency slots for the artists under political pressure.
Ksenia Yurkova has taken part in numerous shows and festivals worldwide, to mention Photoireland Festival21; Backlight Festival ’20; Athens Photo Festival ’19, ’17, ’15; Krakow Photo Month ’19; Grandprix Fotofestival ’15; a screening at Documenta@15; three times has been nominated to Kuryohin Prize, was awarded stipends from the Austrian Ministry of Culture and Sport, and by the Federal State of Lower Austria; has released several artist books. Her works are in public and private collections worldwide, mainly in Russia, Germany, France, Finland, and Austria.
Selected screenings:
2025 Donaufestival, Kesselhaus (Krems, At)
2025 XI NEFILTRAVANAE KINO (Vilnius, Warsaw, Helsinki, Minsk)
2024 Experimental Superstars Festival (Novi Sad, SRB) winner
2024 Lange Nacht der Kultur, Schleswig-Holsteinisches Künstlerhaus e.V. (Eckernförde, Ge)
2024 Instants Vidéo Numériques et poétiques, Friche la Belle de Mai (Marseille, Fr)
2024 International Human Rights Film Festival Albania, Kinostudio (Tirana, Al)
2024 ALC videoart festival, MACA Museum of Contemporary Art (Alicante, Esp)
2022 @DOCUMENTA 15: Non-Human Agents During the War, documenta-Halle (Kassel, Ge)
2022 Identity, Pavelhaus (Bad Radkersburg, At)
2021 Q&A. Aa-collections (Vienna, At)
2021 FOR SURE! (Hjalteyri, ISL)
2020 Backlight Festival (Tampere, Fi)
2019 Athens Photo Festival, Benaki Museum (Athens, Gr)
2019 Kuryohin Prize Exhibition, Kuryohin Centre (St. Petersburg, Ru)
2019 You are What you Eat, Krakow Photo Month. Bunkier Sztuki Gallery (Krakow, Pl)
2018 Kuvan Kevat, Project Room Gallery (Helsinki, Fi)
2018 Spinebone Soup and Stuffed Rabbits, Fotoforum Gallery (Innsbruck, At)
2018 Red May, Alkovi Gallery (Helsinki, Fi)
2018 Open Museum, Electromuseum (Moscow, Ru)
2018 Habitat vol.1, Museum of Impossible Forms and HOAS Campus (Helsinki, Vantaa, Fi)
2017 Empty Expectations, The Exhibition Laboratory (Helsinki, Fi)
2017 Athens Photo Festival, Benaki Museum (Athens, Gr)
2016 One or Two Approaches to a Landscape, Listhus Gallery (Ólafsfjörður, ISL)
