Eva Ursprung, Katy Deepwell — HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark

Artist Talk

In a joint conversation, Eva Ursprung and Katy Deepwell will address relevant themes from Ursprung’s exhibition The Art of Surfacing, which recently opened at HALLE FÜR KUNST Steiermark, and explore her feminist artistic practice, which Deepwell also refers to as artivism.

This exhibition condenses Eva Ursprung’s artistic practice as consistently feminist, activist, and cross-media, which since the 1980s has understood art as a tool for social intervention: From co-founding one of Europe’s first feminist cultural magazines, Eva & Co, to musical, performative, and organizational collective work, to the development of iconic feminist image politics such as the Superwoman, Ursprung combines artistic production with networking, visibility, and political agency for women. As a central figure in international feminist actions and initiatives — for example, as president of IAWA (International Association of Women in the Arts) and founder of W.A.S. (Womyn’s Art Support) — she was an early influencer of cyberfeminist and network-based practices that critically reflect on communication technologies, bodies, power relations, and global inequalities. Her transnational projects, performances, and net art formats are understood as collective, processual counter-models to patriarchal, national, and linear narratives of art, knowledge, and history, firmly anchoring Ursprung’s work in a feminist artistic practice that inextricably intertwines art, activism, and social justice.

Artists

Participating artists

Solo and Group exhibitions, projects (selection):

Steirische Kulturinitiative (2025, 2024), kunstGarten, Graz (2025, 2021, 2016, 2011), Kunsthaus Graz (2025, 2021, 2012, 2007), prison wall Justizanstalt Karlau, XENOS & Kunst im öffentlichen Raum Steiermark, Graz (2024), Taman Budaya, Yogyakarta (2023), BACC (Bangkok Art and Culture Center) (2023), La Terminal Zawp, MEM Festical, Bilbao (2023), IMA Institut für Medienarchäologie, St. Pölten (2022), Künstlerhaus München, Munich (2022), Schaumbad Freies Atelierhaus Graz (2021, 2018, 2008), Steirischer Herbst, Graz (2020, 2014, 2013, 2006, 1999), <rotor>, Graz (2019), Gakerija ALU, Sarajewo (2018), Künstlerhaus Klagenfurt (2017), POST, Los Angeles (2016), Flux Factory, New York (2016), Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania (2015), Les Kurbas National Theatre Arts Center, Kiew (2014), APO33, La Plateforme Intermédia, La Fabrique, Nantes (2014), MAD Emerging Art Center, Eindhoven (2013), Literaturhaus Graz (2011), Museum of Contemporary Art Vojvodina / Institut für Kunst im öffentlichen Raum, Novi Sad (2011), Stadtmuseum Graz (2010), galerie wildwechsel, Frankfurt am Main (2008), Freiraum Transeuropa / PiroschkaREV, MuseumsQuartier, Vienna (2004), Cornerhouse, Manchester (2002), Laznia Center for Contemporary Art, Gdansk (2002), The Substation, Singapore (2002), Ottis Gallery, Los Angeles (1998).

is a feminist art critic and scholar from London, as well as founder of KT press and editor-in-chief of n.paradoxa: international feminist art journal, which started online in 1996 and was a bi-annual print journal with 40 volumes from 1998 to 2017. In 2007, n.paradoxa participated in the Documenta 12 magazine project.

From 2013 to 2025, Deepwell was Professor of Contemporary Art, Theory, and Criticism at Middlesex University London, and she is currently a Senior Research Fellow at Global Dis:connect, Kate Hamburger Kolleg, LMU, Munich.

In addition to many essays and publications, she has recently published Conversations on Art, Artworks and Feminism (2025) as well as edited De-/Anti-/Post-colonial Feminisms in Contemporary Art and Textile Crafts (2023), 50 Feminist Art Manifestos (2022), which includes a manifesto from Eva and Co., and Feminist Art Activists and Artivisms (2020).