Veneta Androva (born in Sofia) is a visual artist and filmmaker living and working between Berlin and Sofia. Her practice centers on moving image and installation and is developed through research-based artistic approaches.
Working across CGI-based film, multi-channel video, and spatial formats, she investigates how contemporary realities are shaped by technological infrastructures, mediated information, and structures of power. Through hybrid narratives in which documentary material and fiction intersect, she examines how knowledge is produced, circulated, and legitimized within technologically mediated environments.
Her projects combine archival traces, documentary sources, CGI animation, painting, and algorithmic processes, including machine-learning models. By adopting the visual and rhetorical language of the systems she investigates, Androva exposes how automated technologies influence collective imaginaries and political agency.
She studied Fine Arts at the Weißensee Academy of Art Berlin and Philosophy and Art History at Humboldt University in Berlin, and completed a study period in moving image at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem.
Her film AIVA received the Award of Distinction at Prix Ars Electronica (2021) and the Golden Horseman for Animated Film as well as the LUCA Gender Diversity Award at Filmfest Dresden. Her earlier film From My Desert was nominated for the German Short Film Award (2020) and received the Critics’ Jury Award at the 25FPS International Experimental Film and Video Festival.
She has been supported by the Elsa-Neumann Scholarship (NaFöG) of the Berlin Senate, Neustart Kultur / Stiftung Kunstfonds, Cusanuswerk, the Mart Stam Scholarship, and the Bulgarian Fund for Women. Her works have been presented internationally at festivals and institutions including Visions du Réel, Ars Electronica, DOK Leipzig, EMAF – European Media Art Festival, the Goethe-Institut, and in institutional contexts across Europe and beyond.
In 2026, her work will be presented as part of the Bulgarian Pavilion at the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia.
Selected Awards
Willi Münzenberg Forum – Film Award, 2022
Golden Horseman for Animated Film (“AIVA”) – Filmfest Dresden, 2021
LUCA Gender Diversity Film Award (“AIVA”) – Filmfest Dresden, 2021
Prix Ars Electronica – Award of Distinction (“AIVA”), International Competition for CyberArts, 2021
Nominee – German Short Film Award (“From My Desert”), 2020
Critics’ Jury Award (“From My Desert”) – 25FPS International Experimental Film and Video Festival, 2020
Gaudenz B. Ruf Award for Contemporary Art (FINALE), 2019
Solo/Duo exhibitions
The Secret Life of Mushrooms – Structura Gallery, Sofia, 2023
UNREST NOISES, Duo exhibition with Kang Eungbok, die PUTTE, Neu-Ulm, 2023
Becoming A Figure – Duo Exhibition with Peter Odinzow, Goethe-Institut Sofia, 2021
The Good Fight Is on the Gaming Floor – DISPLAY, Berlin, 2018
Selected Group Exhibtions
Resurfacing – Kazanlak Art Gallery, 2025
DA Fest – International Digital Art Festival, Sofia, 2025
Screens and Schemes – Credo Bonum Gallery (Sofia) and Karpuchina Gallery (Prag), 2025
Passing Data – Upcycling the Digital, Prater Gallery, Berlin, 2024
I’M AFRAID I CAN DO THAT – TORULA Art Space, Győr, 2023
BEGEHUNGEN Art Festival – Palais Lichtenstein, 2023
Unexpected Care – Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), Sofia, 2023
Jürgen Wittdorf (1932–2018) – Schloss Biesdorf, Berlin, 2022
Facing B – Galeria Espacio Minimo, Madrid, 2021
CyberArts Exhibition – Ars Electronica Festival for Art, Technology & Society, 2021
Monitoring – Kassel Documentary Film and Video Festival, 2019
Selected Film Festivals
Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur, 2024
Courtisane Festival, Ghent, 2024
Go Short – International Short Film Festival Nijmegen, 2023
International Leipzig Festival for Documentary and Animated Film, 2022
PÖFF Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, 2021
25FPS International Experimental Film and Video Festival, 2021
Ars Electronica Animation Festival, 2021
FILMFEST DRESDEN International Short Film Festival, 2021
Short Film Festival Hamburg, 2021
Short Waves Festival, 2021
FILE Electronic Language International Festival, São Paulo, 2019
EMAF European Media Art Festival, 2019
Education
Master Class (Postgraduate Programme) with Prof. Else Gabriel – Weißensee Academy of Art Berlin, 2018–2019
Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design Jerusalem – with Miri Segal, Michal Helfman and Avi Mograbi, 2016–2017
Fine Arts (MFA/Diploma) – Weißensee Academy of Art Berlin, 2012–2018
History of Art and Philosophy (B.A.) – Humboldt University Berlin, 2009–2014
Selected Talks
Strange New Species – LOOPS / New Practice in Art and Technology, University of the Arts and Technical University Berlin, 2026
Art Swaps – Studio Visit, Prater Gallery, Berlin, 2024
What’s the Point of Artificial Intelligence? – Panel Discussion, Filmfest Dresden, 2024
Guest Lecture – Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema, Concordia University, Montreal, 2023
Animation Perspectives – DOK Leipzig, 2022
Artist Talk – Camera Austria, Graz, 2022
Guest Lecture – Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle, 2021
Guest Lecture – Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, 2021
Prix Forum: The Re-Enchantment of Humanism – Ars Electronica, 2021
EthicAI=FORUM – Goethe-Institut Network, 2021
Lecture Performance “Deep Fakes” – University Paderborn, 2021