Huggy Bears Artists 2024

Helena Araújo is an enthusiastic femme maker and performer, lover of plot twists and a clown full of kitsch and bad jokes. She is originally from Rio de Janeiro and currently lives in between Vienna and Brussels. Helena, as a maker, loves to give space for the imagination to flourish and the double meanings to arise. She is interested in leaving space for different artistic languages to coexist and blend together. In this space, the conventional values and expectations projected onto these languages, and how they are supposed to relate to each other, are free to be challenged.As a good libra, Helena loves to please. Besides working within the traditional spaces of contemporary art she also adores to entertain feverous cabaret nights. Helena challenges the canonical language of cabaret theatre by melting the rigid structures of what a cabaret performance should be and look like. It is often a very colorful mix of dance, performance, theatre and screaming songs.Helena's works have been shown in various places such as Radiant Nights Festival (BE), Moving Futures Festival (NL), FDS Festival (CH), Zahrada Theatre (SK), V-Fest Festival (NL), Pinkbus Plataform (CZ), Paradise Cabaret (IE) and House of Circus- Cabaret Night(NL). Also, as a performer she has worked with many artists: TRASH performance group (NL), Ivo Dimchev (BG), Renan Martins (DE/BR), Martin Talaga (CZ/SK), Petra Tejnorová (CZ/SK) and Pietro Marullo (IT/BE).

Ale Bachlechner is an artist working with performance and video, based in Vienna and Cologne. In her performative work, she investigates communication and affect, ways of relating and the pitfalls of neoliberalism. Her works vary in size from solo pieces to working with a team of several performers, artists, musicians and technicians and include the temporary dating agency „Twelve Roses“ (2013), the participatory performance coaching institute „This Is Not A Competition“ (2016),the online TV series „Studio Hallo“ (2018), the solo performance "Men and me" (2019) and a long term collaboration with dancers and choreographers Artmann&Duvoisin. She has studied Comparative Literature in Innsbruck and Art at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne and has held several teaching positions. Her monograph "I'm Sure Everybody's Doing Their Best" was published by DISTANZ.