kai.ziegner@luca-arts.be

Kai Ziegner is a visual artist, writer, storyteller, artistic researcher and educator from Berlin. When he was 14, his homeland, the so-called German Democratic Republic, suddenly fell apart and vanished in time. In 1989, Ziegner took part in the first public demonstration against the GDR government on his hometown Plauen. Together with 15.000 other demonstrators, he dreamt the short-lived dream of a new, better and, above all, free GDR. It was the first large mass demonstration in the small country that could not be broken up by security forces. For Ziegner it was a defining moment, since he experienced for the first time what freedom really means and what the agency of civic engagement can achieve.

After photography studies in Berlin and fine arts studies in Zurich, in 2021 Kai Ziegner completed a doctorate in artistic research with distinction at Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) and Linz University of Art and Design (UfG). His dissertation "A History of Violence. Photography and Writing as an Experience, Experiment and Insight" was published in 2024 in form of an experimental book by Diaphanes Publishers Zurich – Berlin. In his artistic research, the artist mainly examines the mechanisms and different consequences of social transformation processes and their effects on the individuals affected by them. His particular interest lies in the question of how traumas are passed on from generation to generation and how this process can be stopped or at least mitigated through critical examination of (family) history. Ziegner’s research also shows, how families deal with profound societal change and how they manage to adapt under different political conditions. For his artworks, which mainly appear in form of books and exhibitions, Ziegner uses conceptual photography and experimental writing as central artistic research strategies to show how the unimaginable can be made visible and how ambiguity can be narrated, and finally how such a differentiated processing of experiences through different layers of time can be made possible. His works were shown in different European countries and Japan.

Since September 2025, Kai Ziegner is teaching in the Bachelor's and Master's programme of Photography at LUCA School of Arts Brussels. As a Senior Researcher, he is also member of the Photography Expanded Research Cluster at the school and, as a special guest lecturer in the arts at KU Leuven, he supervises doctoral students in the development of their dissertations in the field of artistic research.