18 Questions With...
Xenia Lesniewski

I’m inspired by the absurd choreography of everyday life. The way we want to live, the architecture around us, the weird little details like queues or automatic doors that refuse to open. I’m fascinated by systems that misbehave: glitchy tech, endless bureaucratic loops, interfaces that almost seem to have a mind of their own. There’s something poetic when serious control just falls apart and something unexpected slips through. For me, art is a way to highlight those cracks, to slip sideways through structures, or just to poke at them until they start dancing.

Puh, I’m not totally sure. There’s so much. But right now, a perfect day means no appointments, no phone, no notifications. Just being in my studio in Vienna, working on my own terms. I like when the day has its own rhythm: a bit messy, not fully efficient, and definitely not something anyone else can control. A day that just belongs to me.

I guess I was a bit of a weirdo. Usually dressed all in white, carrying this quiet fear of dying, but always quietly scheming. I loved eavesdropping on adult conversations, trying to figure out their strange rituals. I had this habit of breaking meals into parts, eating each thing separately, like I was trying to rewrite the rules of the world. Maybe that was my first way of finding some control in a world that often felt uncontrollable.

Life. The everyday. The sense that everything could be different. I’m probably driven by contradictions, by systems that pretend to be stable but are full of cracks. By language when it fails. By laughter in the wrong moment. I’m fascinated by the absurdities embedded in daily life. Furnishing, aesthetics, communication and by the moments when these structures start to unravel. I’m interested in how laughter can disrupt authority, how confusion can become productive, and how irony can open up space for critique without immediately closing it down. In short: I’m motivated by discomfort. My own, and the system’s.

Honestly, I always just imagined myself being an artist. No one in my family had any clue about the art world or how to become an artist, so I had to fight my way into art school. After that, it was mostly learning on the fly. It wasn’t until I got into my studies that I realized being an artist could mean way more than just painting. Looking back, yeah, I was pretty naive—lol!

I’m inspired by people who challenge systems and make space for complexity. Whether artists, thinkers, or just everyday folks. I admire artists who don’t settle for easy answers and who use contradiction, ambiguity, and humor to open up new ways of seeing.

And there are so many amazing artists! Mierle Laderman Ukeles, Andrea Fraser, Barbara Kruger, Louise Bourgeois, VALIE EXPORT, Christoph Schlingensief, Bas Jan Ader, Philip Guston, General Idea, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Félix González-Torres, Hans Haacke - I could go on and on... There have been and still are so many incredible people. They showed how art can be political and poetic, critical and playful all at once.

For me, it’s less about having one idol and more about being part of a shared legacy of courage and critical thinking that keeps pushing boundaries.

I’m interested in how people navigate structures they didn’t create. Whether social, economic, or emotional. I focus on the spaces in between: where personal logic meets institutional rules, where the private becomes performative, or where control quietly masks itself as care.

Alternative spaces, both physical and conceptual, are central to my work. I’m drawn to settings that mimic the familiar. Offices, waiting rooms, shops, but don’t quite function as expected. These semi-fictional environments open up questions: What if things worked differently? What if roles shifted?

Ultimately, I’m also fascinated by encounters, with viewers, institutions, or fictional counterparts. My work often stages interactions, confrontations, or negotiations that reflect the systems we live in and those we might imagine instead. 
It’s not just about documenting themes, but observing behaviors. Especially when they don’t quite fit the context.

There are several projects I’ve been interested in for a while, often because they don’t fit neatly into typical art world categories. For example, creating a German Schlager song or a techno dancefloor hit, has been on my mind for years. It’s not so much about the music itself, but the emotional simplicity and wide reach of the genre that intrigues me. I wonder how much ambiguity or subtle critique could be woven into such an apparently straightforward pop format without losing its accessibility. (If any producers are reading this: please get in touch!)

I’m also drawn to working with fashion. Not just as a collaboration, but more as an exploration of how bodies, materiality, and representation negotiate with one another. Clothing as language, as system, as social surface.

Theatre is another format I’ve been thinking about more recently. I’m interested in breaking down narratives and roles, creating performances where it’s unclear who is audience and who is part of the show.

Humans. Not as viewers, but as collaborators. Intentional or not. They bring in their own logic, habits, moods. Sometimes they follow the script, sometimes they derail it completely. Either way, they turn the work into something I couldn’t have made alone. I’m interested in that unpredictability. In the small misunderstandings, the improvised responses, the accidental choreography that happens when people interact with a system that wasn’t made for them, but with them in mind.

I nurture my vices and see no need to abolish them.

It really depends on my mood. Most of the time, I actually prefer silence. There’s a certain clarity in it that helps me focus, especially when I'm navigating more conceptual parts of my work. But when I'm engaged in more repetitive or manual processes, I enjoy having something in the background. Usually a mix of philosophy podcasts, political debates, in-depth science features, or eccentric talk shows where people think out loud. I’m drawn to those unfiltered moments, half-formed ideas, and the occasional awkward silence. There's a kind of rawness there that often triggers unexpected connections in my own thinking.

Music-wise, it's pretty eclectic. I might start with Klaus Nomi’s theatrical, otherworldly voice, drift into Detroit techno or early new wave, and suddenly end up singing along to classic Austropop. It’s all very intuitive—whatever resonates with the energy of the moment.

I have a soft spot for misunderstandings. They are like cracks in the surface where something raw and unfiltered can seep through. But yes, of course, this boring and romantic idea still persists that art is about effortless freedom, uninhibited self-expression, and some form of escapism or beauty... For me, art isn’t a retreat. It’s more like a pressure chamber, a space where contradictions build heat, where risk grinds against repetition, and where failure is not a detour but a material in itself.

Making art often feels like cooking without a recipe. Sometimes you create a surprisingly wonderful dish, sometimes a complete mess. Either way, you learn something new that you can share over a communal meal. I think art is like a lightning strike. It’s unpredictable, sometimes destructive, but always illuminating a hidden landscape.

For me, art is not a piece of jewelry but a lever. It is a tool to pry things open, disrupt surfaces, and ask questions that refuse neat resolution. Sometimes that means making a mess. Sometimes it means looking ridiculous. But that is exactly where the real work begins.

The best advice I ever got was to trust the process, even when it feels chaotic or uncertain. Art isn’t some straight line to a finished product, it’s full of detours, dead ends, and surprises. It’s about being honest, even if that means some people won’t get it or like it. That kind of freedom is where the real work and risk happen.

“Stick to what sells” or “play it safe”, advice I’ve heard too often from galleries and so-called art world insiders. Sounds sensible at first, but what it really does is cage your creativity and extinguish any chance for originality. Art doesn’t thrive in comfort zones. It demands risk, discomfort, and sometimes outright failure. That’s why I rarely collaborate with galleries; I refuse to be confined by what’s deemed “marketable.” For me art is like walking blind into a forest. If you stick to the familiar paths, you’ll never discover the wild, untamed places that challenge and transform you. To find something new, you have to get lost.

Can be anything. A traditional white cube, of course, but also a TV screen, a kitchen, a hotel room, a parking lot, or a forgotten corner on the street. What excites me most is when the space itself surprises you and shifts how you experience the work. For me, it’s about breaking free from the expected and letting art appear where it is least expected. Catching people off guard, sparking new conversations between the space, the work, and the viewer.

The first thing I notice about people is their body language: how they move, their posture, the little gestures. It reveals so much about their mood, confidence, or what they feel before they even say a word.

It really depends on the person, but if you haven’t read them yet, I’d recommend some classics like Bartleby, the Scrivener by Herman Melville, Der neue Geist des Kapitalismus by Luc Boltanski and Ève Chiapello, Die feinen Unterschiede by Pierre Bourdieu, or Orlando by Virginia Woolf.

Above all, the possibility that everything could be different. Not as a fixed statement, but as an invitation to question what seems natural or inevitable. My work tries to open up a space where norms dissolve and alternative ways of living, seeing, and thinking become imaginable. It’s about unsettling the familiar, through contradiction, humor, and subtle disruptions, so that new possibilities can emerge.