VBKÖ: When Archives Speak
The VBKÖ archive documents over a century of artistic practice and ever-changing queer feminist organizing by women* artists since VBKÖ’s foundation in 1910 – as well as the association’s complicated and contradictory history.
Zoe Gudović has developed VBKÖ: When Archives Speak—a project centered on listening to those who work with archives today. Within the framework of this residency, she is planning a series of live radio conversations with artists, researchers, and practitioners who engage with archival material as a living process.
At the heart of the project is the idea to archive those who archive the archive. When Archives Speak focuses on the people who listen to the past in the present—those who read between documents, trace silences, and activate forgotten or marginalized narratives. Through conversation and sound, the project asks how these acts of listening shape our understanding of his/her/they/story, and how they might leave traces for possible futures. The archive here is approached not as a static storage space, but as something relational, attentive, and constantly in motion.
The project unfolds through audio format, emphasizing voice, presence, and intimacy. Listening becomes both method and outcome.
The series takes place within Ženergija, a long-running queer-feminist radio program broadcast live on Radio Orange (Vienna). For 22 years, Ženergija has worked from the margins toward the center, breaking silences and archiving herstories of women and queer people, resistance, art, and struggle. The program speaks openly about misogyny, racism, patriarchy, colonialism, and class struggle—while also insisting on solidarity, love, and hope. Voices excluded from the mainstream here become the main frequency.
https://o94.at/
Program schedule
- February 12 – Georgia Holz, Veronika Hösch: VBKÖ Archive
- March 12 – Daniel Hill, Vinko Nino Jaeger, Eszter Katalin:
Working in the Gap: Where Are the Queer People in the Archive? - March 19 – Pedra Costa:
Creative Infidelity: Research following Nísia Floresta’s strategies of cultural translation - March 26 – Christina Werner:
Wenn Schatten zu Flüstern Beginnen - April 9 – Tahereh Nourani:
Archive of Futures (Interactive multichannel sound installation + live performance)
Zoe Gudović is a transdisciplinary artist, author, feminist, and social justice activist from Belgrade, currently based in Vienna. Working across performance, media practices, public intervention, and cultural activism, her work explores art as a tool for resistance, collective memory, and social change.
