Anna Jermolaewa: Radical Hope

With an empathetic eye and subtle humour, Anna Jermolaewa lays bare the hidden mechanisms of everyday life, her practice always very close to the reality of life. Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein is devoting a major solo exhibition to the Vienna-based artist (born in St Petersburg, 1970). Radical Hope combines selected earlier works with numerous new pieces created especially for the exhibition in Vaduz. For this purpose, Jermolaewa travelled to the Pyrenees to trace the path of Walter Benjamin and Lisa Fittko, who helped him escape Vichy France; then to Paris to meet with Aleksandra Wysokińska, who had helped the artist make her escape; and finally to the Channel Island of Jersey, where she shot material for the project in Gerald Durrell’s sanctuary for endangered species.

Jermolaewa’s artistic practice is intimately linked to her biography. The exhibition is defined by three main aspects: the passion for collecting, exile and migration, but also her special relationship with animals. Forced to flee the former Soviet Union in 1989, Jermolaewa turns her attention to personal experiences and historical traces, confronting our current political and societal realities with radical hope.

A central body of work is the new artwork Museum of Radical Hope (2026): a collection of small, everyday objects made by Soviet prison inmates that Jermolaewa collected over the course of several years. They include hand mirrors and combs along with door handles and lighter cases. Created in acrylic, bread (shaped, left to dry and painted) and ebonite (used for electrical insulation), these objects are characterised by remarkable, careful craftsmanship. The acrylic comes from production scraps from Soviet military factories, where prisoners were forced to work. Amidst captivity, loss and extremely adverse conditions, their production is a testimony to the human capacity to create something beautiful and life-affirming – and thus also to a spark of hope.

“One thing I find particularly touching about Anna Jermolaewa’s work is that she makes time itself a protagonist. She revisits places, people and themes, allowing societal and historical changes to transform her own biography. In this way, the past becomes something alive, something that changes with each new encounter. For me, the particular strength of her work lies in this sustained, deeply humane way of seeing.”
–Christiane Meyer-Stoll, Director of Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein and curator of the show

The exhibition Radical Hope affords a comprehensive insight into Jermolaewa’s conceptual artistic practice, which spans a broad range of media: video, installation, photography, performance, painting and sculpture. Of particular interest to her are the subtle mechanisms of influence that shape our everyday lives. “Many of my works deal with manipulation,” says the artist. “Who or what is being manipulated almost always remains outside the image. The mechanisms of power that influence or control individuals today are becoming increasingly subtle and invisible.”

Jermolaewa has previously featured in two group shows at Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein: Parliament of Plants (2020–21) and On the Street (2025). The collection includes two of the artist’s works, both part of her exhibition in the Austrian pavilion at the 2024 Venice Biennale.

The title goes back to the 2006 book Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation by the philosopher Jonathan Lear. He asks how we can envisage a future amidst physical, social and cultural collapse. The answer is: with radical hope.

Anna Jermolaewa was born in Leningrad, USSR (now St. Petersburg, RU), and has lived in Vienna since fleeing political persecution in 1989. A founding member of the opposition party Democratic Union, she was accused of anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda. She is Professor of Experimental Design at the University of Arts Linz. Her work has been exhibited internationally and is represented in major museum collections worldwide. In 2024, she represented Austria at the Venice Biennale.

Publication and edition
The exhibition is accompanied by a comprehensive catalogue with texts by Sandra Frimmel, Leonie Huber and Christiane Meyer-Stoll, as well as an artist’s edition.

A Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein production curated by Christiane Meyer-Stoll with Henrik Utermöhle.