Polyphonic Archive, Entangled Voices

Exhibition Period: March 14–May 2, 2026
Guided tours and networking: 2–6 pm, Saturday, March 14
Official opening of the VBKÖ Archive and the exhibition: 6 pm, Saturday, March 14

The Vereinigung bildender Künstlerinnen Österreichs (VBKÖ) is pleased to announce the re-opening of its archive, accompanied by the group exhibition. This first extensive renovation of the archive – made possible with the generous support of the Cultural Department of the City of Vienna (MA 7) – was undertaken to improve environmental conditions for the long-term preservation of the association’s historical materials and to further open the archive to a wider public. With the main part of the renovation now finalized, we present a series of public activities from February to April 2026 to celebrate this milestone.

The exhibition presents the archive as a living collection—one that encompasses more than a century of artistic production and ever-changing queer feminist organizing by women* artists since VBKÖ’s founding in 1910. It also reflects the association’s complex, at times contradictory, history. It offers insight into VBKÖ’s institutional history and conflicts, the scope of the archive, the works and memories of its members, and contemporary approaches to archival practice. It brings together original archival materials alongside artistic works and research projects that critically engage with the VBKÖ archive. Conceived as an active site of exchange, it aims to foster dialogue around feminist art histories and practices and to provide an accessible space for research and collective reflection.

In addition, seven artists from VBKÖ’s members’ residency programme—Pêdra Costa, Zoe Gudović, Daniel Hill, Vinko Nino Jaeger, Eszter Katalin, Tahereh Nourani, and Christina Werner—have engaged in sustained dialogue with the archive. Drawing on its documents, photographs, objects, files, voices, as well as its silences and violences, they have developed works spanning installation, video, sound, and performance. Together, these works question what the archive preserves, what it excludes, and what futures it might still hold. They address themes of politics, ideology, queer kinship, resilience, solidarity, and collective imagination, tracing connections across time between the women* and queers who shaped VBKÖ and those who continue to shape it today. The exhibition positions the archive as a space for exchange, reconnection, and collective reimagining.

Artists and Projects: Pêdra Costa, Zoe Gudović, Daniel Hill, Vinko Nino Jaeger, Eszter Katalin, Tahereh Nourani, Christina Werner, VBKÖ members, SKGAL, living library of becomings, and more.

This program has been organised by the VBKÖ members: Georgia Holz, Veronika Hösch, Mika Maruyama, Stephanie Misa, Miwa Negoro, Tsai-Ju Wu, and Julia Wieger