Artist Talk (EN)
Jonida Laçi & Luīze Nežberte

Jonida Laçi and Luīze Nežberte in conversation with Anna Marckwald and Hannah Marynissen, Co-Curators Kunsthalle Wien Preis 2025.

Jonida Laçi and Luīze Nežberte won the Kunsthalle Wien Preis 2025. The prize seeks to support emerging artists living and working in Vienna and to promote discourse on contemporary art via an annual collaboration with the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and the University of Applied Arts Vienna.

Jonida Laçi studied Art and Space | Object as well as Art and Time | Media at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and was awarded the Kunsthalle Wien Preis for her installation Ajar (2025). The work is made up of video projections, sculpture and a readymade. Laçi’s discrete sculptural and spatial structures have been employed with moving projected image, in order to play upon the shaping of the image. Similarly, projectors and tripods are approached as sculptural objects with the intention of interrogating the framing, reception and perception of images.

Luīze Nežberte studied Sculpture and Space at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and was awarded the Kunsthalle Wien Preis for her work We could listen much longer, but it is late by now (2025). Nežberte examines found objects and historical forms in order to uncover their material and cultural histories. She reinterprets historical architectural forms to explore how cultural memory is transmitted, erased and transformed through material absence and sculptural interpretation. Nežberte’s sculptural interventions describe an overlap between personal memory, traditional architecture and historiography.

The talk is free of charge with a valid exhibition ticket.

Students of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and the University of Applied Arts Vienna can visit the exhibition free of charge.

Jonida Laçi

Jonida Laçi (b. 1990, Durrës, Albania) studied Art and Space | Object (2020-2025) and Art and Time | Media (2016-2018) at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. She also holds Bachelor of Arts in Cultural and Social Anthropology (2018) and Theatre, Film and Media Studies (2014) from the University of Vienna. She has held exhibitions at marais/moeras, Brussels (2025) and CAN, Vienna (2023) and exhibited at Forde, Geneva; Courtney Jaeger, Basel; OxfordBerlin, Düsseldorf (all 2025); etta, Düsseldorf (2024); Fondation Tschüss, Karlsruhe; New Jörg, Vienna; Kunstraum Schwaz, Tyrol; Kunstverein Zink, Vienna and Künstlerhaus, Vienna (all 2023). Laçi lives in Vienna.

Luīze Nežberte

Luīze Nežberte (b. 1998, Riga, Latvia) studied Sculpture and Space (2020-2025) and Transarts (2018-2020) at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Her work has been exhibited at the Latvian National Museum of Art, Riga; Chicago, London (both 2025); Kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga; Neuer Kunstverein Wien (both 2024); House of Spouse, Vienna; SPOILER, Berlin and 427 Gallery, Riga (all 2023). From 2023 to 2025, she co-curated the exhibition programme at Pech, Vienna together with Bruno Mokross. Nežberte has been selected to participate in the De Ateliers programme in Amsterdam and currently lives in Amsterdam.