Juliana Herrero
*1975
ART PRAXIS I PRAXIS DER KUNST
2001-Present
1:1 spatial installations, sound installations, musical objects, architectures of atmospheres, sculptural works, transpositions as synesthesia in watercolor as experimental cyanotype, mixed media, interventions in situ and live, conceptual art
Juliana Herrero was born in 1975 in Choele Choel, Río Negro.
She was trained in Argentina and Germany, developing later her work across the latitudes.
She studied at INSA (now IUPA -Instituto Patagónico de las Artes) in G. Roca and Fadu UBA in Buenos Aires, Argentina and at Städelschule, Frankfurt am Main in Germany.
Currently, the artist works between Buenos Aires and Vienna, where she has lived since 2006.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Juliana Herrero is a Patagonian artist born in southern Argentina and based in Vienna. Her practice moves across territories shaped by personal, geographic, and emotional histories, connecting Patagonia, Buenos Aires, and Europe. Since 2006, she has developed a production network that understands displacement as a form of multiple belonging.
Raised between sea and mountains, her connection to Patagonian landscapes remains foundational: the environment becomes both a site of exploration and a territory for open-field processes. With a transdisciplinary background spanning art, architecture, dance, and music, Herrero works across analogue and digital media, primarily through ephemeral installations and sculptural works while extending into painting, works on paper, expanded media, moving image, sound, and performative actions.
At the core of her practice is the notion of Sur[real]isation—a shifting field between the real and the imagined, the perceptible and the intangible. Her works unfold as immersive and site-responsive environments where sculptural, sonic, painterly, and filmic elements interact as interconnected systems and atmospheric scores.
Alongside ephemeral and participatory situations, her paintings, collages, and works on paper function both as autonomous works and as fragments of larger spatial constellations. Often fragile or nearly immaterial, her practice explores transformation, perception, and the shifting boundaries between physical and virtual, human and non-human, nature and artifact.
Rather than producing fixed meanings, Herrero creates open situations that invite emotional resonance, imagination, and embodied encounter. For her, artistic resilience becomes operative – a way of inhabiting and transforming worlds.
JULIANA HERRERO
(b. 1975, Patagonia) is a Patagonian-born artist based in Vienna since 2006. Growing up between the sea and the mountains shaped her deep connection to nature and a lasting sense of freedom. Her transdisciplinary training spans art, architecture, dance, and music — beginning at INSA (now IUPA – Instituto Universitario Patagónico de las Artes) in General Roca, RN; followed by architectural studies at UBA in Buenos Aires; and culminating in conceptual design at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main, where she later joined the film class to expand her work in time-based media.
Herrero’s artistic practice is grounded in spatial sensitivity and often evolves into temporal, site-specific explorations — what she describes as a media archaeology of the future. Working with sound, performance, and poetic spatial interventions, her pieces are often ephemeral, yet visually and materially striking.
She has presented solo exhibitions such as: Pequeño Concierto [Hörkabinett] (TONSPUR, MuseumsQuartier, Vienna, 2025), One of a Kind (art in public space, Vienna 20th district, 2024), Play Please (Odeon Theatre, 2023), Fuga N22 (Jan Arnold Gallery, MQ Vienna, 2022), on the filaments, there where the plateau rises (sehsaal, 2019), and REM (Bildraum 01, 2017).
Her work has also been featured in group shows at institutions such as das weisse haus, Künstlerhaus Vienna, MDW University of Music and Performing Arts, esc medien kunst labor (Graz), Maison de l’Argentine – Cité Internationale Universitaire (Paris), Centro Cultural Borges, Fundación Andreani, CCK (Buenos Aires), Centro Cultural Alberdi (Neuquén), Kunsthalle LAB (Bratislava), and various museums in Finland including Kajaani Art Museum and K.H. Rendlunds Museum (Kokkola).
Earlier participations include the BA exhibitions in Vienna (Semper Depot) and Rotterdam (Berlage Institute, 2002), Festival Junger Talente (Messe Offenbach, 2003), and a performative projection for Yoko Ono: Dream Universe at Portikus (Frankfurt, 2005), projecting across the Main river.
She was a studio artist at studio das weisse haus (2013–2015), and during the pandemic (2020–2021) worked in guest studios at WUK and the WUK Ausweichquartier, where she initiated Slow Wave, a platform for open artistic encounters addressing climate and transformation.
Her distinctions include a special recognition in Austria’s 2015 Outstanding Artist Awards – Interdisciplinary Arts by the Federal Chancellery, the Andreani Foundation Award for Visual Arts (3rd Prize, Revelación) in Buenos Aires, and production funding from the City of Vienna (Visual Arts and New Media, 2018) for on the filaments, there where the plateau rises.
This is a virtual address for the artist, some of her virtual and natural environments extend here:
- Artist Statement : Mi : Voz
My practice unfolds through a process I describe as [Sur]realisation—a shifting field between the real and the imagined, the perceptible and the intangible. Working across analogue and digital media, my practice operates through sculpture, installation, performance, moving image, painting, sound-based works, and photographic fragments, forming immersive and distributed environments in which forms remain in continuous transformation.
These works expand, fragment, and reconfigure in relation to space, time, and circulation. Often fragile or nearly immaterial, they evoke subtle perceptual states and latent memories, engaging with what resists immediate understanding—what is sensed but not fully grasped.
My installations are frequently site- and time-specific, unfolding as spatial situations that invite participation, intervention, and performative activation. Within this expanded field, sculptural, sonic, visual, performative, and photographic elements operate as interconnected systems—where images, objects, and actions can persist as both situated and autonomous components.
Sound plays a central role in shaping these environments, functioning as a spatial and perceptual force rather than a supplementary layer.
I am interested in processes of transformation within natural and constructed environments, and in the shifting boundaries between physical and virtual, human and non-human, inner and outer worlds. Through this, my work approaches questions of perception, language, and the relationship between nature and artifact.
Rather than producing fixed meanings, I create open situations that resonate emotionally while leaving space for interpretation—inviting the viewer to engage, imagine, and inhabit the work across its multiple states.
Juliana Herrero
- Process / Notes / [Sur]realisation
The following text functions as an open field of thought, fragments, and ongoing reflections within my practice.
Current State of my Art
In my work, towards [Sur]realisation, I combine analogue and digital techniques, contrasting visual and sound utopias but also the daily inflorescence with sound spaces. My works are often quite ethereal, sometimes almost invisible, but the pieces are there to evoke something that wants to be remembered. They are physically floating in the atmosphere, to capture the essence of their own time, and to be experienced: the life of an artwork also has a span.
If I were a cyborg, I would have grown antennae and additional sensors to better sense what I cannot understand, because there are things that are completely out of our control. Engaged with vital processes, transformation and growth, I play with format and scale, deconstructing, fragmenting and re-layering.
My work is site- and time-specific. It crystallizes mostly in fragile spatial installations, sculptural works as immersive and fictional realities—opening the room for participation, interventions and live performance. It expands and compresses in abstract empirical paintings, collages, filmic works, and conceptual gestures exceeding medium.
I juxtapose sound and visuality, where beyond aesthetics I also explore an inner experience of musicality. I am interested in processes of change related to ethereal environments and social structures in the daily confrontation with technologies, as well as in the dialectics of private and public spheres, inner and outer worlds, and their osmotic boundaries.
Likewise, I explore themes that embrace language, alternative forms of communication, nature and artifact, and perception across physical and virtual layers. Within my work, I attempt to emotionally provoke the audience while leaving space for imagination.
I am interested in nature, climate, and the otherness of the other in versatile contexts—politically debated, artistically inhabited, and carried on the skin and voice of the artist.
Within this U-turn, I open my work to new possibilities for visual, sonic, and performative sets, aiming to generate meaningful encounters.
To me, artistic resilience is a way to transform worlds.
JULIANA HERRERO
Current Inspirations / Ongoing exploration
The artist is currently deeply inspired by the beauty and spirit of wild fauna. She follows the learnings of Puma Lontla online, as well as the cameras of dolphindronedom in the North Atlantic, recording dolphins and whales, and the camera of Lorenzo in the South Atlantic documenting the Ballena Franca Austral along the shores—where she also swims in open waters when returning to her homeland.
Professional Projects & Collaborations
Parallel to her own artistic practice, Juliana Herrero has initiated and co-developed several professional, participatory projects that explore art, nature, climate, and community engagement. These projects include:
A professional, participatory platform exploring art, nature, and climate, realized in museums, public spaces, and outdoor sites. Documented in press releases and archives. [Learn more →]
A La Rueda Rueda (2010–2012) – Interdisciplinary workshops for children at WUK, co-founded with Ivana Reyero, combining artistic exploration, play, and collaborative learning.
Other collaborations – 1:1, [la pantera rosa], [PARTITURAS] in the AIR, ANTENNA
These initiatives highlight Juliana’s engagement beyond her own artistic work, fostering dialogue, experimentation, and participation across diverse audiences, genres, genders, and disciplines.