Past Residents

Residents Map

Anna Jermolaewa

Anna Jermolaewa works primarily in the mediums of photography, video, and installation. Her main interest is the analysis of functional structures of society and social systems in everyday life. She continually focuses on the basic conditions of human existence and the nature of man, capturing the relationship between the individual and the masses, freedom and restriction, power and powerlessness, (especially around relationships and networks of hegemonic structures). Her photographs and videos provide information about a world of failure, through conscious and unconscious fears, desires, and passions. The result is a reflection on individual and collective historical consciousness in the form of images that remain in the viewers’ mind. Through the visual telling of history and stories, she attempts to create places of remembrance.

Anna Jermolaewa was born in 1970 in Leningrad (St. Petersburg) and is currently based in Vienna. In 1998 she graduated in Art History at the University of Vienna and in 2002 the New Media class of Peter Kogler at the Vienna Art Academy. She was a Professor for Media Art at the University of Arts and Design, Karlsruhe, Germany from 2005-2011. She also had solo exhibtions in the Victoria Art Gallery, Samara (2013); Camera Austria, Graz (2012); Kunsthalle Krems (2012); Institute of Contemporary Art, Sofia (2011); Kunstverein Friedrichshafen (2009); XL Gallery Moscow (2008); and Museum Moderner Kunst, Passau (2004). Her works are part of various collections including the Stedelijk Museum, Friedrich Christian Flick Collection, Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, MUMOK-Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Wien, Volpinum Kunstsammlung, Museum Startgalerie Artothek, Vienna, Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum, Vehbi Koc Foundation, Kontakt. The Art Collection of Erste Group and Belvedere.

Past Resident
2014: Alfred Kordelin Foundation

Saara Ekström

Saara Ekström works primarily with photography, video and film, but also uses drawing, sculpture and other techniques, which she frequently combines into complex site-specific installations to form multi-layered and suggestive experiences. The nature, feel and behavior of material is one of the foundations for Ekström’s work. Through both natural and artificial materials, Ekström creates worlds in which the counterpoints of ugly and the beautiful, cold and the hot, visible and the invisible, the uncontrolled and the controlled and solid and liquid revolve in an endless cycle. Birth and death, growth and withering, beauty and unpleasantness challenge one another. Ekström’s ‘aesthetics of unpleasant’ question the culturally bound hierarchies of value attached to the materials.

Saara Ekström (born 1965) has shown her work in both solo and group exhibitions in Finland and internationally in the United States, Japan, Brazil, Holland, Belgium, and Austria among others. In 2011 – 2012, Ekström had solo exhibitions at Kiasma, Helsinki and at the Kuntsi Museum, Vaasa. In 2012, she collaborated with composer Francesca Verunelli in a video-opera shown at the 56th International Festival of Contemporary Music, Venice and her work was shown at the Festival Voies Off, Arles. She is currently preparing for a touring mid-career exhibition in Sweden, Denmark and Finland. Ekström has received nominations and awards from foundations such as Ars Fennica, Carnegie, Stina Krook and the Wihuri Sibelius Prize. She currently lives and works in Turku, Finland.

Past Resident
2014: Anonymous

Alexander Tovborg

Alexander Tovborg is known for his ability to tell a story through his work. Weaving abstract and expressive elements with figurative imagery, Tovborg uses painting, drawing, sculpture and performance to produce compelling works that engage the spectator. At the crux of Tovborg’s artistic practice is the ability to draw on elements from the past to draw attention to who we are as human beings today. Taking inspiration from mythological stories, religion, and natural and social history, Tovborg explores complex metaphysical issues such as female and male archetypes, the division between the real and imaginary worlds, as well as ideas of love and hierarchy. As a result of Tovborg’s intentions towards these issues, there is a spiritual quality that emanates from his work.

Alexander Tovborg (born 1983) studied at Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Karlsruhe and graduated from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. He is represented by Galleri Nicolai Wallner in Copenhagen and Nicelle Beauchene Gallery in New York.