Julia Bugram

January – February 2026

e-mail: julia.bugram@gmail.com
facebook: Julia Bugram
instagram: @_.jubu._
website: juliabugram.com

Julia Bugram works with graphic art, objects, and installations. Her practice operates at the intersections of art and socio-political discourse. In this context, she is actively engaged as a board member of IntAkt (Internationale Aktionsgemeinschaft bildender Künstlerinnen), a feminist art network founded in 1977. She is a member of Künstlerhaus Wien as well as Saloon Vienna.

“Art is political. Whether it makes social statements or offers a place of calm in nature: the way we relate to one another is not insignificant.” – Julia Bugram

Alongside her drawing-based works, Julia Bugram has recently realised two social sculptures. Achtung Ameisen!temporarily reclaimed shared living space and created low-threshold connections between people. From these reflections on togetherness, she developed Raising Hands — a participatory sculpture composed of one million one-cent coins, conceived as a symbol of peace and a sign of community and collective, solidaristic action.

She is a co-founder of the initiative JOMO – Joy of Missing Out and serves as a board member of the feminist art network IntAkt, founded in 1977.

Julia holds a degree in Business Administration from the Vienna University of Economics and Business.

Artist Statement

In my artistic practice, I work through both personal and collective memories — particularly those that have shaped us as women* across generations: experiences of visibility and erasure, of resistance and adaptation, of attributions that were never self-chosen. This engagement is fuelled by deep emotional currents: by anger as much as by hope.

I understand art as a radical, creative act — a way of thinking, feeling, and acting that questions norms and opens up new spaces of possibility. My works resist the habitual gaze — the male gaze that has shaped our understanding of femininity*, bodies, and social values for centuries. Instead, I seek new images, new narratives, and new perspectives that create space for viewpoints systematically marginalised within patriarchal structures.

For me, feminism is not only a critique of existing conditions, but also the creation of new forms of togetherness. Solidarity, care, and collective remembrance are central elements of my work — as is the belief that art can function as a tool to name, transform, and connect. I believe in the power of community, and in the idea that change begins on a small scale: in dialogue, in artistic gestures, in shared ways of seeing.

My work is concerned with reclaiming interpretative sovereignty — over identity, over bodies, over history. I feel connected to all women*, trans, non-binary, and queer people who have fought for their rights — and continue to do so. This intergenerational connection is fundamental to me: as recognition, as responsibility, and as inspiration.

I understand my practice as part of a living feminist network: an interweaving of voices, bodies, and experiences that connects across time and space. This network is fragile and resistant at once. It carries the knowledge of those who came before us, and the courage of those yet to come. Art becomes a site of exchange, contradiction, and solidarity — and above all, an invitation: to look, to listen, and to take part.

In this sense, art is not mere representation for me — it is action, relationship, invitation, and sometimes provocation. It is not closed, but open. Not elitist, but permeable. And it emerges — like all change — in the in-between: between I and we, between memory and vision, between what is, and what could be.

BLM
© Jolly Schwarz

#letssmashthepatriarchy
© Jolly Schwarz

Mutter Heldin
© Jolly Schwarz

Exhibition view, Berlin
© Paula Koring