Sonya Darrow
Artist in Residence
Sonya Darrow is a Czech-American community-based artist, sociologist, and cultural practitioner whose textile-based, ritual-informed practice understands making as a mode of inquiry through which social memory and cultural continuity are carried in everyday life. Positioned between art and sociology, Darrow works through the practices of both fields, understanding artistic and sociological inquiry as braided forms of engagement with peripheral cultural practices, particularly folklore and human–environment relations, as they take shape in contemporary life.
Darrow is the founder of the movement Folklore’s Not Dead, developed in collaboration with Nadace Veronica, the Czech Republic’s oldest environmental foundation. The movement is an ongoing, community-driven initiative that examines folklore as a living social form rooted in everyday practice. It foregrounds how folklore operates simultaneously at the margins and the center of local life, shaping relationships, values, and temporal rhythms. Through collective making, research, and public engagement, Folklore’s Not Dead invites folklore to be carefully rewoven into present-day social worlds, attending to its complexity, its vulnerabilities, and its capacity to endure through shared practice. Darrow is currently based between Brno and Vienna, with projects extending across the Czech Republic, Austria, and beyond.
"Watersculptures", 2025
A workshop series created by Sonya Darrow & Reinhold Zisser
Three workshops and a final exhibition at the LLLLLL artist run space with works by:
István Antal / Regina Hügli / Anne Marie Lutz / Stefan Lux / Stefan Malicky / Johannes Milchram / Georg Novotny / Yehvenia Pavlova / Tanya Shtykalo / Silvia Ungersböck
TURNING THE TIDE – Watersculptures (TTT) was an artistic research project engaging with social and ecological justice, water quality, micro-ecologies, adaptation strategies, and cultural heritage.
The central medium water functioned as a resource, symbol, and carrier of history. During February and March 2026, a workshop series combined scientific perspectives, personal experiences, and artistic perception. The series was open to people from diverse professional and social contexts, artists, researchers, and other interested participants.
Sonya Darrow and Reinhold Zisser, who jointly realised the project, invited all participants to actively take part and to create their own work as a reflection of the workshop series. The basis for this was the collection and mixing of water from the locations of the three workshops (Nussdorfer Wehr – Danube, the Seestadt Lake, and the Lobau). Of the sixteen participants, ten transformed their experiences of the series into works that were presented in the final exhibition at LLLLLL artist-run space in Seestadt Aspern.
Dates / Places of the workshops:
Workshop 1: Tuesday, 17 February 2026, 3:00 pm Am Brigittenauer Sporn 3, 1200 Vienna (BOKU Hydraulic Engineering Laboratory)
Workshop 2: Friday, 27 February 2026, 3:00 pm Seestadt, meeting at Bruno Marone followed by a walk around the Lake and a visit of the LLLLLL artist run space
Workshop 3: Friday, 6 March 2026, 3:00 pm Biberhaufenweg 117 (Bus stop Großer Biberhaufen) Destination: Lobau Groundwater Plant, Saltenstraße
Exhibition / Final Presentation: Tuesday, 17 March 2026, 6:00 pm LLLLLL, artist-run space – Sonnenallee 26/3
