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Kay Walkowiak (b. 1980, Salzburg) lives and works in Vienna. His practice unfolds across film, installation, performance, and photography, investigating how temporality and performativity shape perception and meaning. Drawing on long-term artistic research and intercultural engagement, Walkowiak critically examines the foundations of Western tradition by contrasting them with non-Western concepts of time, subjectivity, and relational models of coexistence. He frequently employs strategies of performative appropriation, playful displacement, and spatial contextual shifts to propose and imagine alternative social, political, and ecological futures. Grounded in the concept of Speculative Fiction, his exhibitions remain open structures in which perception, memory, and speculation intersect as processes of continuous transformation. Walkowiak studied Philosophy and Psychology at the University of Vienna before completing degrees in Photography and Video Art at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna and Sculpture and Multimedia at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. A formative period of study at Tokyo Zokei University further shaped his cross-cultural and interdisciplinary approach.

Walkowiak’s work has been presented in numerous solo exhibitions at international institutions and museums, including the Jim Thompson Art Center, Bangkok; CNA Luxembourg; Austrian Cultural Forum Tokyo; MAK – Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna; Bank Austria Kunstforum Wien; FJK3, Vienna; Soulangh Cultural Park, Tainan; Neuer Kunstverein Wien; Forum Stadtpark, Graz; and the Salzburger Kunstverein. His work has been featured widely in group exhibitions at major museums and venues such as Belvedere 21, Vienna; Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern; Kunsthalle Tübingen; MIT Act Cube, Cambridge; Sigmund Freud Museum, Vienna; HMKV (Hartware MedienKunstVerein), Dortmund; Kunsthalle Krems; MMKK – Museum Moderner Kunst Kärnten; Künstlerhaus Wien; Kunstpalais Erlangen; Manggha Museum, Kraków; and the Austrian Cultural Forum New York. Walkowiak has participated in numerous international biennials, including the Vienna Biennale, Bangkok Biennial, and Lahore Biennale 01.

In addition to his exhibition practice, Walkowiak’s film and video works have been screened internationally at institutions, film festivals, and cultural forums such as MAXXI Rome, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin; EXPO Osaka; Bangkok Art and Culture Centre; Austrian Cultural Forum New Delhi; Diagonale, Graz; the European Media Art Festival (EMAF), Osnabrück; and the Chicago Underground Film Festival. His practice also extends into the public realm through permanent and temporary interventions in public space in Europe and Asia.

Walkowiak’s work is held in numerous public and private collections, including MAK Vienna; Belvedere 21; Wien Museum; LENTOS Museum Linz; Museum of Salzburg; the Republic of Austria; the EVN Collection, Maria Enzersdorf; the LBBW Collection, Stuttgart; CNA Luxembourg; and several federal and provincial public collections of contemporary art in Austria.