Olena Newkryta (*1990, Ukraine) is a visual artist based in Vienna. Through films, installations and textile pieces, Olena explores the interrelations between forms of marginalized labour, technological infrastructures and strategies of exploitation in contemporary capitalism. In order to grasp the complex fabric of the techno-social environment we inhabit, her works interweave socio-political, material, economic and historical dimensions of the research into audiovisual ‘hypertexts’. Understanding weaving as an embodied world-making practice, Olena uses textile as method and metaphor to connect different sources of knowledge and practices of thinking otherwise. Inspired by glitches and sabots, techno-feminist theory and post-work notions, material histories of textiles and the emancipatory potential of communal practice, her works seek to occupy realms of imagination and the future through images and stories that rupture hegemonic narratives.

Olena studied at the University of Applied Arts Vienna (AT) as well as at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam (NL) and is a member of The Golden Pixel Cooperative - a Vienna based association for moving images, arts and media. She was an artist in residence at the Est-Nord-Est résidence d’artistes (Canada, 2023) and the Jan van Eyck Academie (Netherlands, 2024).

Olenas practice has been awarded with prizes and grants such as the Outstanding Artist Award for Media Arts (2024), Price of the City Duisburg for the Best Short and Middle Length Documentary Film (2023), Working Grant of the City of Vienna (2022), START scholarship of the Federal Ministry for Culture (2019), Award of the Kunsthalle Wien (2017). Her works have been presented at international exhibitions, screenings, and biennials, including WRO Media Art Biennale (PL), EYE Filmmuseum Amsterdam (NL), 47. Duisburger Filmwoche (DE), 35. Singapore International Film Festival (SGP), Kunstraum Lakeside (AT), Kunsthalle Wien (AT), Kyiv International Short Film Festival (UA), Filmmuseum Wien (AT), Temporary Gallery Cologne (DE), VISIO – Lo schermo dell´arte (IT), Diagonale - Festival of Austrian Film (AT), Dokumentarfilmwoche Hamburg (DE), Kunsthaus Graz (AT), Lentos Kunstmuseum (AT), A Tale of A Tub Rotterdam (NL).

olena.newkryta@gmail.com