MIRIAM BAJTALA

18 ROOMS

Video installation and photography, 2024
part of the group exhibition MANY_PART 2
Opening: Thursday, September 26, 2024
Exhibition dates: September 27, 2024 to October 18, 2024

KunstRaum Goethestrasse xtd

If you were to reconstruct your life story in the form of the apartments you’ve lived in, how many rooms would your life have?

This is the subject of the title 18 ROOMS, my spatial life story. The multi-part video installation conveys impressions, memories,
insights, and dreams that explore various forms of self-reflection. What does it mean to be “at a disadvantage” and to come from
a financially disadvantaged, patriarchal, and culturally uneducated family with a migration background? What does the word
“self-empowerment” mean, and how can such a story be told cinematically?

From simple physical observations to questions of identity and the mechanisms of social attribution, autofiction,
documents, elements of feature films, and experimental representations become intertwined.

The installation concludes with the photograph “The Eyes of Others,” which appears on the front of this card: Sculptural and symbolic,
condensed into a human mass, this final image marks the beginning of my life as an artist. (mb)

*1970;                     I live, sleep, and work mostly in Vienna. The themes of my artistic exploration revolve around perception, space, memory, (self-)empowerment, witnessing, representation, and the power of poetry.

1998 – 2002           Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna

2007 – 2011           Lecturer, Institute for Art and Design, TU Vienna, Video Concept and Production

2011 – 2018           University Assistant and Lecturer at the Experimental Art School, University of Art and Design Linz

2021 – 2022          University Lecturer, Institute for Art and Education, University of Art and Design Linz

GRANTS / AWARDS (Selection)

2021                         Gabriele Heidecker Prize

2013 – 2010          Federal Studio, 1070 Vienna

2015                         Artist-in-Residence, CCA Andratx Mallorca

2012                        Outstanding Artist Award for Fine Arts

2009                         Foreign Studio Grant, Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research (BMBF), Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris

2008                         Austrian State Grant for Fine Arts

SOLO EXHIBITIONS (Selection)

2023                        In the Bodies, Bildraum 01, Vienna / Focus on: Miriam Bajtala (Screening), BSL, Vienna

2021                          Exhibition for the Gabriele Heidecker Prize, afo Upper Austria, Linz

2020                        dichtegeschichte densestory, Kunstraum Weikendorf, as part of Art in Public Space Lower Austria // with Miriam Bajtala, TV broadcast, Oktoskop

2019                         Assembly, Galerie allerArt Bludenz // Ghosteries1, MAERZ Galerie, Linz

2017                         the only song I remember in Slovak, Size Matters, Vienna with Miriam Bajtala, Living Collection sixpackfilm, Metrokinokulturhaus, Vienna

2016                         Körper meiner Arbeit, Performance, Künstlerhaus Wien

2013                         in meinem Namen, Secession, Vienna

2011                          terms of decision2, Austrian Cultural Forum, London

2010                        home stories, Galeria Krokus, Bratislava // Nothing But Ghosts 3, Forum Stadtpark, Graz

GROUP EXHIBITIONS + SCREENINGS (Selection)

(2023) FOUND IN TRANSLATION (screening), Amsterdam (2022) Oikos: ‘the house’, Wienwoche, Brunnenpassage, Vienna (2020) Kairos, Recall of Earth, MIET, Villa Kapantzi, Thessaloniki, Greece (2019) Displacement, Musrara Festival, Jerusalem, Israel (2018) ba‡b+a, 10 Years of MUSA (2017) PERFORM, Videonale 16, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany (2016) World of Speaking, Trans-Positions-Festival Werkleitz, Halle, Germany / 62nd International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, Germany / art makes us strange, B16 Film Festival, Brno, Czech Republic / It’s Time, Duisburg Film Weeks No. 40, Germany (2015) The As-If Principle, Magazine 4, Bregenzer Kunstverein, Bregenz / POZOR! Cold Border Attention! Art Collection of the State of Upper Austria, Linz (2014) a soap opera show machine house, Villa Renata, Basel, Switzerland / Biography II, We, Fotogalerie Wien / Operation Goldhaube, Tradition and Contemporary Art, Salzburg Museum, Monatsschlössl, Salzburg (2013) Digging Up, Festival of the Regions, Eferding / Quiet Screaming. The Cinema as Installation Space. Top Kino, Vienna; (2012) after the project is…, Department for everything else, Berlin / home sweet home, Atelierhaus Salzamt, Linz (2011) #6 The don’t you dare issue, magazine feature in Parabol Art Magazine / Animism, Generali Foundation, Filmcasino Vienna / borders of drawing, das weisse Haus, Vienna; (2010) Drawing, Tyrolean Artists’ Association, Kunstpavillon, Innsbruck / 13 public projections, a project by KÖR-Steiermark and Diagonale / Untitled, Kunstverein Medienturm, Graz / Life is probably round, MAERZ Gallery, Linz (2009) Untitled, 100 Years of the Vienna Technical Museum / Miriam Bajtala, Herwig Kempinger, Loredana & Günther Selichar, Fotohof, Salzburg / Performance I, Fotogalerie Wien / unORTnung V, Ankerbrotfabrik, Vienna / (2008) AUSTRIA conTEMPORARY, Essl Collection, Klosterneuburg, etc.

SEE MORE AT: https://www.miriambajtala.org/de/cv/

1 2 3 4 5 together with 1 Susi Jirkuff / 2 Blue Curry / 3 Gregor Graf / 4 Annja Krautgasser / 5 Flora Watzal