Sanna Helena Berger (b. Malmö, Sweden, living and working in Berlin, Germany) is an artist and writer. Berger works with site- and situation-specific installations informed and influenced by theory, philosophy and analysis. Her work is never independent of her writing which she sees as art in its own right; material and meaning lands on par. Her installations often consist of found objects, lack as a formal position and unreadymades, an ongoing theory where she grants agency to ordinary objects to act against their mass produced commonplace status. Berger sets out to show the difference actualised by an object’s lived-in condition – repeating material does not repeat meaning. Her auto-didactic position manifests as a reflexive discipline – showing process is as important as showing result. Her writing style ascribes to a formlessness, fomlosigkeit, where her auto-biography – life, is mixed with theory and philosophy, utilising language both as method and topic. Her voice, as well as her work, oscillates between the phenomenological and observed, leaving a self unpolished; openly inadequate, embracing lack, showing dilemma, working against terminal meaning. Unfinishedness is legitimised as a final form instead of a consequence of that which is not achieved.
‘Sanna Helena Berger creates situations that provoke and intensifies the alternation between scrutinising and coming under scrutiny that which signifies our interaction with art. Berger effectively destabilises flows of real social interaction in explorations into how behaviour is conditioned by our surroundings, and how in turn these mechanisms can be deployed for artistic purposes. Berger’s interventions enlarge and skew the familiar into subtly caricatured forms, inviting detachment.” Stian Gabrielsen, Editor, Kunstkritikk
“Berger’s work is an aesthetic and intellectual structure driven by autodidacticism and material pragmatism. Often beginning as a text, her installations variate quotidian experiences reformulating power relationships and ideas of value through situations and objects. While Sanna may not refer to herself as a director, I find it helpful to think about the diversity of her practice as a directorial strategy, particularly in her management and orchestration of meaning and form.” Alexandra Symons Sutcliffe, curator / writer, Mousse Magazine
Solo Exhibitions
Upcoming:
Liste with Shahin Zarinbal, Basel, June, 2026
Œuvre (working title), Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster, October 2026 – January 2027
2026
Difference, Matteo Cantarella, Copenhagen, March, 2026
und, zwar, WRG Braunschweig
und, zwar (Dokumentation), Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Braunschweig
2025
Absolut, Shahin Zarinbal, Berlin
Metod, Antics, Stockholm
Opera, Cabinet Milano, Milano
2024
Bourse, Centralbanken, Oslo
Nicht-nur-Spekulativ, PHILIPPZOLLINGER, Zürich
Skulptur Projekte, Kaiserwache, Freiburg
Post-dekadens, 3e Våningen, Göteborg
2023
Rational Display, Galerija Miroslav Kraljevic, Zagreb
Concrete Arguments, Shahin Zarinbal, Berlin
2022
XS, Spazio ORR, Brescia, Italy
2020
Parallels, Cell Project Space, London
2019
SALE, PS120, Berlin
2018
A stock-take, Super, Berlin
Index, The Contemporary Art Foundation, Stockholm
A sale, Brussels Art Weekend, Super
2017
Vienna, Cordova, Vienna
Vienna, Cordova, Barcelona
Arbetstitel (offentligt verk), Delfi, Malmö
2016
Agency (properties of pseudo-public spaces as a prelude), Sorbus, Helsinki
Agency, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, November
A sequence which corresponds, Union Gallery, London
The edge must be scalloped, Diorama, Oslo
Performances / Readings
2026
and, then, Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster
2025
Schmutztitel, Kunsthalle Wien, Wien
Ex Libris Redux, Texte Zum Nachdenken, Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster
All ears, Haubrock Foundation, Berlin
Neostalgia, Oxford, Berlin, Berlin
5-7 minutes, Adults Entertained, Berlin
New German Critique, Skånes Konstförening
Konzentration auf die Inhalte, Hansa Bibliothek, Berlin
It is good fishing in troubled waters, Obelus, Berlin
2024
Post-mother-ism, Texte Zur Kunst, Berlin
Aktuelles Denken, amatter, Berlin
Who’ll critique the critic’s critic?, Shahin Zarinbal, Berlin
New German Critique, Cittipunkt, Berlin
Die Waffen der Frauen, Lecture, Weißensee Kunsthochschule, Berlin
2023
Role (play) Mocvara Gallery, Zagreb
Unruly Analysis, Jennifee See Alternate, Den Frie, Köpenhamn
Post-mother-ism, amatter, Gesundbrunnen, Berlin
2022
Der Ganz Normale Luxus der Zunge, Kunsthalle Bremerhaven
Group / Duo Exhibitions (selection)
2026
Invitations, Atelier 02, Paris
2025
Untitled participation, Kunsthaus Baselland, Basel
Schmutztitel, Kunsthalle Wien, Wien
Towards the centre of the field, SIMIAN, Copenhagen
Metod, Halle für Kunst, Lüneburg, DE
A movement, Tibberödsbiennalen, Tibberöd, Sweden
Stillleben, European Renovation, Stockholm
2024
Die installierte Reale, with Cecilie Norgaard, Rinde am Rhein, Düsseldorf
2023
Ohne Ohne Titel, Philipp Zollinger, Zürich
Mute Point, Shahin Zarinbal, Berlin
Postural Fatigue, Baerum Konsthall, Baerum
Represäntation, Waf Galerie, Vienna
Minor Variations, Skånes Konstförening, Malmö
2021
Im dialog, Kunstverein Kärnten, Austria
Selected Published works
LACK, Tausend Editionen
TIME, Tausend Editionen
Ex Libris Redux, Materia, Vienna
Opera, Cabinet Milano, Milano
Postponed, self-published, Berlin
Neostalgia, Hassla Books, New York
New German Critique, ABHIVYAKTI Magazine
3 text compendium, Tausend Editionen
Nicht-nur-Spekulativ, Catalogue, philippzollinger, Zürich
Feuilles Volantes by vorstellen.network at Sculpture Garden Biennale, Geneva
Der ganz normale luxus, Zirka, Hamburg / Yvonne Lambert, Paris
Artist Network Theory Supported by Swiss Art Prize
Eva Hesse Foundation publication, NY
Domestic Manifesto, Las Injurias, Caracas, Venezuela, Printed Matter
Berger is the co-founder of performance programme ‘amatter’ and is currently teaching theoretical input and art writing at Kunsthochschule Weisensee, Berlin