Acaye Kerunen

Acaye Kerunen (b. 1981, Kampala, Uganda) is a multidisciplinary artist and activist whose expansive practice spans installation, performance, storytelling, and poetry. Working with natural materials such as banana fibre, raffia, reeds, and palm leaves—grown, harvested, and dyed in Uganda—Kerunen creates biomorphic installations that are both environmentally rooted and socially charged. Her works dismantle colonial hierarchies between fine art and craft, often incorporating objects made by local women and recontextualising them as monumental assemblages. Drawing on ancestral techniques passed down through generations, Kerunen’s labour-intensive processes—embroidery, knotting, hand stitching—embody a deep engagement with land, community, and climate. Her art reflects a regenerative ethos and a vision of communal, sustainable futures grounded in African knowledge systems. Her work was featured in Uganda’s inaugural national pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale (2022) and has been shown at Afriart Gallery, Kampala (2021) and the Nyege Nyege Festival (2018). ...

Galerie Kandlhofer is a young Austrian gallery, founded in 2016 situated in the centre of Vienna. With a focus on supporting emerging talents, the gallery represents Austrian and international artists, with a multifaceted program ranging from painting, sculpture, drawing, photography and installations to a series dedicated to contemporary video works and performances. Represented Gallery artists are: Hermann Nitsch, Richie Culver, Acaye Kerunen, Sofia Borges, Faye Wei Wei, Frauke Dannert, Karl Karner, Alina Kunitsyna, James English Leary, Xie Lei, Nana Mandl, Hannah Perry, Maximilian Prüfer, Markus Redl, Rodrigo Valenzuela, Marc Henry, Alicia Viebrock. ...