Ju Aichinger

Ju Aichinger (b. 1995 in Bad Ischl, Austria) studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. Her interdisciplinary practice encompasses ceramics, installation, costume, and painting. At the center of her work lies a sculptural engagement with clay in all its formal and expressive diversity. Positioned between the familiar and abstraction, her works draw on visual references from queer subculture, pop culture, and everyday fragments. She is particularly interested in the material and immaterial remnants of social trends—traces of a collective memory that she archives, transforms, and thus simultaneously preserves and recontextualizes. Her works explore questions of identity, social narratives and the relationship between the individual and collective. Alongside her artistic practice, Aichinger designs stage sets and costumes, most recently for hold yr ache 2 my ache by Zeynab Kirikou Gueye and Lau Lukkarila (TQW, 2024), Lapse and the Scarlet Sun by Luca Bonamore & Lau Lukkarila (ImPulsTanz, 2023), and hearing the wild heart by Alex Franz Zehetbauer (brut, 2022). Her work has been shown in exhibitions such as Corporate Unwellness (Schwindel LLC), Was machen Sachen (Plain Art), and Soft Machine (Phileas, curated by Ashley Hans Scheirl and Jakob Lena Knebel). Ju is a co-founder of Verein Hufe (formerly Kollektiv Zirkusgasse)—space for art and dramatic meetings—through which the collective curated the project space Zirkusgasse 38 for two years. This venue served as an interface between art, curation, stage design, and social encounter. Room name: to be or not to be (butch)