Ira Thiessen is a German photographer and artist whose work encompasses documentary-artistic photography, installation, and visual archiving. Her practice investigates the intersections of migration, identity, and collective memory, particularly within the context of ethnic German culture from the former Soviet Union.
Blending personal history with social observation, she creates narratives where objects and symbols serve as vessels for the experiences of post-Soviet displacement. Her work utilizes materiality as a central tool to render the often invisible questions of heritage and belonging tangible. Moving between staged photography and immersive installations, Thiessen places familial influences into new aesthetic contexts while reflecting on the political systems that have significantly shaped her biography.
Born in 1983 in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Ira Thiessen studied documentary-artistic photography at the Ostkreuzschule in Berlin. Her work has been exhibited internationally in numerous solo and group exhibitions. In 2017, she was awarded the Lotto Brandenburg Art Prize for Photography and led workshops on conceptual photography at the Goethe-Institut in Beijing in 2016. She currently lives and works in East Westphalia.
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EXHIBITIONS
2024 KUKUSHKA – Solo show, Kulturhaus, Bielefeld, DE
2021 KUKUSHKA – Solo show, Elsa Kunst&Raum, Bielefeld, DE
2020 KUKUSHKA – Group show, BBK-Atelier, Ravensberger Spinnerei, Bielefeld, DE
2019 PRIVET GERMANIA – Group show, SCHAURAEUME, Bielefeld, DE
2018 PRIVET GERMANIA – „Willkommen im Abschied“, Group show, Lyonel-Feininger Galerie, Quedlinburg, DE
PRIVET GERMANIA – Group show, Kunstraum, Potsdam, DE
2016 PRIVET GERMANIA – Centre for Contemporary Art, Montpellier, FRA
PRIVET GERMANIA – „Stimmen“, Group show, TAN Gallery, 798 Art District, Beijing, CHN
PRIVET GERMANIA – „Habitus“, Solo show, EIN AREAL, Wuppertal, DE
PRIVET GERMANIA – „Positionen“, Group show, Photobastei, Zürich, CH
PRIVET GERMANIA – Group show, HELLERAU – Europäisches Zentrum der Künste, Dresden, DE
2015 PRIVET GERMANIA – „OHO“, Group show, Ostkreuzschule, HO Berlin, DE
AWARD / MORE
2024 – present Member of the Kulturhaus Bielefeld e.V. (Ostblock Cultural Center), Bielefeld
2021 Working grant for single female artists, Jury: Christina Végh (Kunsthalle Bielefeld) and Katharina Bosse, Kunstraum Elsa, Bielefeld
2019 – 2021 Member, BBK – Bezirksverband Ostwestfalen-Lippe (BBK-OWL)
2019 Art Award BBK Bielefeld, (BBK-OWL)
2017 Lotto Brandenburg Art Award Photography
2016 Workshop Lead: „Conceptual Photography“, Goethe-Institut Beijing, Beijing, CHN
PUBLICATION / PRESS
the Guardian Süddeutsche Zeitung Ost Journal The Calvert Journal fluter IGNANT WDR Neues Deutschland Moskauer Deutsche Zeitung Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung Berlinograd