Performing the Archive – The Future of Artistic Archives
Biennale Sessions
Graphic design: Marie Artaker with Rok Ifko Krajnc
Panel Discussion on the Occasion of the 61st International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia
As part of the Biennale Sessions program 2026, the Angewandte takes the contribution of this year's Austrian Pavilion
by Florentina Holzinger as a starting point to explore broader transformations in how artistic and especially performance
archives are conceived, activated, and made relevant for present and future generations.
The panel brings together artists, curators, and scholars to examine what contemporary archives can and should do
— with and beyond documentation. The focus is on how curatorial settings as well as performative and ephemeral artistic practices
can challenge archival conventions, how the ephemeral can be archived, and what remains of a performance that was never meant
to last.
Drawing on concrete experiences from exhibition-making, curatorial practice, and archival research, the
panel addresses these questions with urgency: at a moment when the future of cultural memory is being actively negotiated
across institutions and disciplines: Who decides what an archive remembers – and what it forgets? How can historical materials
be used as ‘living resources’ instead of remaining static data? What must a diverse, artistically influenced archive do –
and be – in order to remain relevant for present and future generations?
Welcome:
Ulrike
Kuch, Rector of the University of Applied Arts Vienna
Panel:
Nora-Swantje Almes,
Curator, Austrian Pavilion 2026 Seaworld Venice and Curator Live Program at Gropius Bau, Berlin
Jakob
Lena Knebl, Ashley Hans Scheirl, Artists, Austrian Pavilion 2022 Soft machine and Her Angry
Body Parts
Martin Reinhart, Researcher, Art & Science, Art x Science School for Transformation,
University of Applied Arts Vienna
Dagmar Schink, Managing Director, VALIE EXPORT Center Linz, University
of Arts Linz
Moderation:
Beatrice Jaschke, Co-Director, /ecm study programme, exhibition
theory & practice, University of Applied Arts Vienna
In the presence of students of the University
of Applied Arts Vienna
Biennale
Sessions 2026 
