Visual artist Elianna Renner (b. 1977, Switzerland) lives in Germany, works at the interface of biography and history. In her works she questions historical narratives and their omissions – always with the aim of visualizing the power relations behind the forgotten or concealed. A focal point of Renner’s artistic practice is (auto)biographical work.

Her focus is always on stories of women, often those that do not appear in official historiography at all or only marginally. Renner creates an aesthetic-visual approach to the examination of (oral) history. Her aim is to make the story(s) perceivable as constructions that are presented in a new way depending on the narrator. Scientists are constantly confronted with the question of how they can deal with the never-ending demand for truth in history. Renner seeks to expose this claim to truth as illusory. In her works she imagines, reassembles, links fiction with the “real” and uses a variety of artistic media such as film, photography, audio, text, sketches and installation. With her works she reminds us that not only personal memory processes are inevitably incomplete, but that cultural memory and official historiography also produce (in)avoidable gaps that refer to the construction of history(ies) in general.

Elianna Renner has been working for years on projects in an international context, e.g. in New York, Buenos Aires, Tel Aviv and Frankfurt. Her works have been shown in numerous exhibitions in Germany and abroad. Renner is the winner of the Omanut Zwillenberg FörderPrize, Zürich (2024) Ottersberg Art Prize (2019), the Theobald Simon Prize (2012) and the 33rd Förderpreis für Bildende Kunst 2009 of the City of Bremen. She has received the following scholarships, among others: Scholarship for further artistic education, German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), Stiftung Zurückgeben, Filmstart 01+09, project scholarship from Nordmedia and Filmbüro Bremen.