KSENIA YURKOVA

SHORT ~ 500 characters:
Ksenia Yurkova is an artist and artistic researcher based in Austria, working across experimental film, moving image, photography, installation, and text. Her practice explores how political structures become embodied through language, memory, affect, and identification. Her work has been presented at Donaufestival, Tallinn Art Hall, W139 Amsterdam, @DOCUMENTA 15, and international film and video festivals. She is the founder of AIR InSILo and a PhD-in-Practice researcher at the University of Applied Arts Vienna.

MEDIUM ~ 1000 characters:
Ksenia Yurkova is an artist and artistic researcher based in Austria, working across moving image, experimental film, photography, installation, and text. Her practice examines how political structures become embodied through language, memory, affect, and identification, exploring how meaning, ideology, and power are produced and internalised.
Yurkova began in political and cultural journalism and photography before developing an interdisciplinary practice combining research, appropriation, irony, self-reflection, and critical engagement with systems of representation. Moving image has increasingly become central to her work.
Her work has been presented at Ars Electronica Deep Space 8K, Donaufestival, Tallinn Art Hall, W139 Amsterdam, Fotogalerie Wien, Benaki Museum, PhotoIreland, Instants Vidéo, Un Festival C’est Trop Court!, @DOCUMENTA 15, and on ORF III. In 2025, her film Easter received the 2nd Prize at Bideodromo, while in 2024 she received the Best Experimental Documentary award at Experimental Superstars Festival. Her work is held in public collections including the State Collections of Lower Austria and the Academy of Fine Arts, University of the Arts Helsinki.
She is founder and artistic director of AIR InSILo and currently pursues a PhD-in-Practice at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, researching reticence as a political and artistic strategy.

LONG ~ 2250 characters:
Ksenia Yurkova is an artist and artistic researcher based in Austria, working across moving image, experimental film, photography, installation, and text. Her practice examines how political structures become embodied through language, memory, affect, and forms of identification. She is interested in the relationship between individual perception and the political body, and in the ways that meaning, ideology, and power are produced, transmitted, and internalised.
Yurkova began her career in political and cultural journalism and photography before developing an interdisciplinary artistic practice encompassing photography, video, installation, performance, artist books, and experimental film. Her work combines research-based approaches with strategies of appropriation, over-affirmation, irony, self-reflection, and critical engagement with existing systems of representation. Moving image has increasingly become a central medium through which she explores these questions.
Her work has been presented internationally at institutions and festivals including Ars Electronica Deep Space 8K, Donaufestival, Tallinn Art Hall, W139 Amsterdam, Fotogalerie Wien, Benaki Museum, Athens Photo Festival, PhotoIreland, Kraków Photo Month, Instants Vidéo, International Experimental Film and Video Festival, and Un Festival C’est Trop Court! Her films and video works have also been presented by ORF III, at the Experimental Forum Festival in Los Angeles, and at @DOCUMENTA 15. In 2025, her film Easter received the 2nd Prize at Bideodromo, while in 2024 she received the Best Experimental Documentary award at Experimental Superstars Festival.
Yurkova has received grants, residencies, and awards from Austrian and international cultural institutions, including the Austrian Ministry of Culture, the State of Lower Austria, and international foundations. Her works are held in public and private collections, including the State Collections of Lower Austria and the Academy of Fine Arts, University of the Arts Helsinki. She has published several artist books and has been the subject of critical writing by curators and theorists.
Alongside her artistic practice, Yurkova has developed an extensive curatorial and institutional practice. She co-founded the Suoja/Shelter festival-laboratory in Finland and is the founder and artistic director of AIR InSILo, an artist-in-residence research programme in Austria.
She is currently pursuing a PhD-in-Practice at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, where her research investigates figures of reticence as a political and artistic strategy.