Sensory Art Lab Vienna – as part of the Vienna Climate Biennale 2026
Workshop and Event Series
All events are open to people aged 16 and older; registration: info@sohostudios.at
A project by SOHO in Ottakring in collaboration with Produktionskollektiv Wien as part of the Vienna Climate Biennale 2026
General Project Description
Engaging with the olfactory aspects of urban spaces, the Sensorisches Kunstlabor Wien is a five-part workshop series along with two events at KunstHaus Wien.
The formats form a sensory line extending from KunstHaus Wien via Sandleiten to Indigenous regions of the Amazon. This double coordinate — spatial and temporal — creates experiential spaces in which visitors can sense the fragility of ecological systems, their need for care, their transience, and the feminist dimensions of care and resistance.
We understand smells as invisible, ephemeral traces that carry memories, atmospheres, and ecological transformations. They tell stories of places, plants, people, industrial processes — or of their disappearance. In times of climate change, smellscapes are changing as well.
In the artist-led workshops in and around KunstHaus Wien, (organic) materials are collected in order to ultimately produce a scented water through a distillation process, which becomes a distillate of what has been learned and experienced. The distillation process is accompanied by a conversation reflecting on the entire workshop series in relation to the olfactory aspects of urban spaces, bringing the project to a close.
The collaborative project “Otros futuros – Other Futures” extends this axis spatially into the Global South. Through encounters, Otros Futuros seeks to open a South–North dialogue on the climate crisis.
Programm in detail:
Dialogue
April 11, 4.30 pm
SOHO STUDIOS, Liebknechtgasse 32, 1160 Wien
Otros Futuros – Andere Zukünfte
von Susana Ojeda und Marcela Torres-Heredia
Otros Futuros seeks to open a South–North dialogue on the climate crisis through encounters. In conversations with territorial leaders involved in territorial struggles from Abya Yala (Latin America), participants are invited to listen to forms of life and resistance that already exist in those territories. Where, ecological collapse is not a future threat, but a lived reality.
Accompanying the conversation, a workshop will take place on April 19 at SOHO STUDIOS, activating political imagination for shared living spaces — grounded in reciprocity, care, and responsibility.
April 14, 3 – 5 pm
“What Does Social Reality Smell Like? A Sensory Exploration at KunstHaus Wien”
Workshop mit Hansel Sato
KunstHaus Wien
barrierfree
This workshop takes place at KunstHaus Wien and partly in its immediate surroundings. It invites participants to perceive smells as clues to social differences in urban space. Together, we explore how different living realities manifest in interior spaces, transitional zones, and the areas surrounding KunstHaus Wien. Through small artistic experiments and open exchange, we approach these often-overlooked connections and discover new, sensory perspectives.
April 19, 3-5 pm
Otros Futuros – Andere Zukünfte
Workshop mit Susana Ojeda und Marcela Torres-Heredia
SOHO STUDIOS, Liebknechtgasse 32, 1160 Wien
Otros Futuros seeks to open a South–North dialogue on the climate crisis through encounters. In conversations with territorial leaders engaged in territorial struggles from Abya Yala (Latin America), collective imaginaries of a casa común — a shared living space of humans, nature, ancestors, and future generations — are activated, beyond extractivism, colonial notions of progress, and the exploitation of bodies and territories.
The workshop is part of a workshop series that will culminate in an exhibition at SOHO STUDIOS as a gesture toward other possible futures.
April 21, 3-6 pm
Urban SCENTSCAPE – SmellBAR
Workshop with Regina Pemsl
KunstHaus Wien, Treffpunkt Innenhof
The invisible landscape spreads in front of us over the Garden of the KunstHaus in Vienna. A world of messages floating through leaves, branches and houses, hidden informations and traces in the soil.
In our workshop we take sitespecific samples, mark finding places, open/desintegrate the material (cutting, grating, mortaring, grinding …), to make it accessible as a part of the SmellBAR to our olfactory nerves.
With watery solutions of these smell-samples we will visualise horizons of Urban SCENTSCAPE on Filter-/Japanese paper.
April 28, 15-18 Uhr
CROSSPOLLUTION – Utopie und Realität
Workshop with Karl Michael Lange
KunstHaus Wien, Treffpunkt Innenhof
The starting point for CROSSPOLLUTION is the friction between Friedensreich Hundertwasser’s ecological-poetic utopia and the traffic-dominated reality surrounding the KunstHausWien.
The workshop consists of two parts: First, we collect fine dust in the courtyard, which pollutes the utopian island every day. Then we build birdhouses out of old Tetra Paks, which symbolize Hundertwasser’s idea of a nature-friendly, vibrant city. The finished birdhouses will be temporarily hung in the trees along the road.
The birdhouses may be taken home afterwards.
May 5, 3-6 pm
“Donau Flowing Science Fictions”
Workshop with Amanda Piña
KunstHaus Wien und Umgebung, Treffpunkt Innenhof
In this workshop, we explore new ways of relating to water. Through science fiction storytelling and performative practices, we engage with the Danube and the canal, moving through alternative ways of thinking with this vital element. Inspired by First Nations philosophies, we experiment with fluid forms of science fiction that open up new visions of the future. We approach water as a relationship, a carrier of memory, and a living presence.
We will work outdoors. Please bring comfortable clothing and something to write
May 10, 11 am – 1 pm
Conversation & Distillation
KunstHaus Wien
In the preceding workshop-series, (organic) materials are collected in order to produce a scented water through a distillation process, which can then be distributed to the participants as a distillate of what has been learned and experienced.
The distillation process is accompanied by a conversation reflecting on the entire workshop series in engagement with the olfactory aspects of urban spaces, thereby bringing the project to a close.
In conversation: Karl Michael Lange, Regina Pemsl and Hansel Sato
© Karl Michael Lange