Artwork by: Olaf Osten
Between Homes
Austrian-Ukrainian art exhibition on the topic of identity and belonging
"Between Homes" is a contemporary Ukrainian-Austrian art exhibition that explores social issues such as migration, cultural identity, belonging, and integration in order to shed light on the complex realities of migration and integration from different perspectives. The focus is on artists with refugee experience or a migration background who live in Austria and are actively involved in the local cultural landscape. With Vienna as the artistic starting point and the focus on the Favoriten district – one of the most diverse and dynamic districts in the city – the project promotes intercultural dialogue, social participation and the visibility of marginalized voices. By highlighting both the challenges and the successes of the displaced people, the project embodies the spirit of support. The project, organized at LOT in the Brotfabrik, a space that symbolizes transformation and multicultural exchange, engages different communities in Vienna while showing the potential of art to act as a bridge between cultures. At the heart of the project is a curated exhibition, complemented by panel discussions and guided tours to engage a diverse audience and foster inclusive dialogue.
Artists: Olaf Osten (GE/AT, Vienna), Ida Osten (AT), Olia Fedorova (UA/AT, Graz), Polina Makarova (UA/AT, Vienna), Zoya Laktionova (UA)
Curated by: Yana Gryniv, Olaf Osten
Public relations: Nadiia Yanieva
Organizational support: Mark Klenk
Exhibition support: Olia Yakymakha Daranyi, Anna Miller
Photographer: Maryana Kosovan, Erol Galip
Videographer: Yuliia Mykhalska
Guided tours: Kateryna Kinsel
Free entry | Part of the Favorite Fall Festival
Opening hours 18-21.09.2025
Thursday 18.09: 19:00-22:00, Vernissage (AT/UA/EN)
- Greeting speeches by Viktoriia Kuvshynnykova (Permanent Mission of Ukraine to the International Organizations in Vienna), Hans Christian-Hasselman (Director of Das LOT, Favorite Fall festival)
- Singing performance by Olena Vyshnevska (Odea Philharmonic)
- Performance with Olaf Osten and Ida Osten
- Artist talk with Polina Makarova
- Guided tour with Katerina Kinsel (EN)
Friday 19.09: 12:00-15:00 & 19:00-23:00
12:00-15:00, open doors
19:00-23:00 (live concert)
Saturday 20.09: 15:00-19:30 (Festival program FAVORITE FALL)
14:00-18:00 Between Homes (AT/UA Ausstellung)
14:00-20:00 LOTBar Eismarillenknödel & Waffeln
14:00-15:30 ARTWALK Favoriten
15:30-16:30 Bunt Cunnies Live Concert
16:30-17:00, Guided tour with Oksana Musiienko (EN)
17:00-17:30, Guided tour with Oksana Musiienko (UA)
21:15-22:00 Drag Show
22:00-04:00 TECHNOLOT
Sunday 21.09: 15:30-18:00 Finissage
15:30-16:30, Discussion "Gemeinsam unter einem Dach" with Yana Barinova and Olaf Osten (UA/AT)
16:30-17:30, Guided tour with Katerina Kinsel (EN)
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Photo credits: Maryana Kosovan
Photo credits: Erol Galip
"Home, Sweet Home"
Painting installation, 2025, by Olaf Osten
Olaf Osten (b. 1972, Lübeck, Germany) is an artist based in Vienna. His works are in collections such as the International Peace Institute and the Wien Museum. Olaf Osten has exhibited all over Europe, and in 2012 he received the Austrian State Prize for the Most Beautiful Books. His art explores themes such as society, movement and complexity, often in collaboration with cultural institutions and festivals. Olaf Osten is co-curator of the exhibition and one of the featured artists.
Olaf Osten's "Home Sweet Home" is a continuation of the 2022 installation presented in Sarajevo and then in Künstlerhaus in Vienna. This installation was developed especially for the Between Homes exhibition and consists of paintings on window curtains and forms a synthesis of a potential home. The images themselves convey stories from everyday life, history and politics and are the result of personal experiences, conversations and literature.
The 2022 installation was exhibited at:
Home Sweet Home (solo), Vilsonovo Park/Austrian Cultural Forum Sarajevo, 2022
On the Road Again (band), Künstlerhaus Wien, A, 2024
"Walls and Fences"
Paintings, 2025, by Polina Makarova
Polina Makarova (b. 1993, Kharkiv, Ukraine) is an artist working with various plants and their surroundings. In 2025, Polina Makarova's works were presented at the exhibition "Stolen Past, Threatened Future" at the Exhibit Eschenbachgasse, Vienna; at the Gemeinde Kreuttal Municipal Office in Hautzendorf, Lower Austria; at the exhibition "Between the Walls" at the Kunsthaus Hruschka, Falkenstein, Lower Austria.
"Walls and Fences" is a series of 15 pastel "portraits", based on photographs of the places that have surrounded her over the past two years. In these landscapes, trees and shrubs — separated or connected by walls and fences — become metaphors for Ukrainian refugees compelled to coexist within alienated and confined spaces. The artist contrasts the order and perfection of local landscapes with an inner chaos and a sense of “intertime”: suspended between the painful reality of her homeland and the idealized unfamiliarity of a new environment. The works evoke the peace and beauty of everyday life, while quietly carrying feelings of emptiness, anxiety, and the search for belonging.
"Do you remember the smell of Mariupol"
Video installation, 2022, length: 4:16 min, by Zoya Laktionova
Zoya Laktionova (b. 1984, Mariupol, Ukraine) is a filmmaker and visual artist who uses moving images, photography and texts in her works. Zoya aims to convey emotion through art metaphors interwoven with the dramatic language of cinema. In her artistic practice, she uses microhistory, autoethnography, and creative storytelling to unfold the complexity of larger events and historical contexts. This often makes it difficult to clearly assign Zoya's films, which is why she has been shown at film festivals (DOK Leipzig, FID Marseille, Cottbus etc.) as well as in art museums such as the Centre Pompidou, the Palais de Tokyo in Paris or the MUMOK in Vienna. Zoya is a fellow of the Harriman Institute Residency at Columbia University '22-23, Civitella Visual Arts Fellow '23-24, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna Resident '23-24, Film Independent Global Media Makers Fellow '24, Cité Internationale des Arts Resident '24-25.
In "Remember the Smell of Mariupol" Zoya Laktionova talks about her 2-month experience abroad in a state of two realities. The video interacts with two landscapes in the same space of the video work. The work uses archival family photos of the artist and texts written in the first weeks of the war. The work absorbs one landscape into another, constantly switching between Austria and Ukraine and merging them, but it is difficult to understand what kind of landscape it is.
Exhibited at Mumok, Vienna, Austria
"Off-Road"
Video, 2022, by Olia Fedorova
Olia Fedorova (b. 1994, Kharkiv, Ukraine) is a multidisciplinary conceptual artist working with performance, photography, video, and text. In her practice, she explores topics such as identity, repression and socio-political narratives from a contemporary perspective. She currently lives in Graz, Austria, and is a co-founder and member of ZIEGEL, a studio community of Ukrainian artists. She holds an MA in textile.art.design from the University of Art and Design Linz and previously studied at the Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Art and the Kharkiv Academy of Arts. Her work has been exhibited internationally, with exhibitions in Ukraine, Austria, Germany, Poland, Australia, the USA, South Korea, Ireland and beyond.
"Off-Road" video artwork is part of the project combining photography, objects, video, and text. First presented as part of a solo exhibition at Kunsthalle Graz (Austria, 2022), it combines works created in Ukrainian landscapes before the full-scale war with reflections on the experience of forced displacement and loss. "Off-Road" comprehends the memory of native places as a way to maintain a connection with the homeland, but at the same time appears as a metaphor for exile, uncertainty and at the same time limitless possibilities. The project is a continuation of the artist's research, who previously intervened in the landscape with the help of her own body or objects, and now, through memories and new living conditions, speaks about the experience of millions of Ukrainian migrants.
