Born in 1979 and grew up in Kibbutz Hazorea, Israel, Atalya Laufer is based in Berlin, Germany. She holds a BA first Hons. in Fine Arts from Central Saint Martins, University of Arts in London UK (2005) and an MA in Art in Context from the UdK, University of Arts in Berlin, DE (2012). She has participated in an exchange program at the Pratt Institute in NYC and has completed a year scholarship in drawing at the Royal Drawing School in London. She has taken up art residencies at the RU NYC, PELEH Berkeley in the USA, Dumfries House in Scotland, Asylum Arts in Warsaw and is recipient of the MAX Studio Scholarship from the Brandenburger Gate Foundation since 2020.
“During my stay in Schöppingen, I worked on a collaborative book project with sociologist Ruth Ziefert that deals with self-image and self-representation. The focus is on portraits of women and non-binary people, as well as the question of how identity is shown, seen, and negotiated today. At the same time, I prepared my exhibition at the Max Liebermann Haus in Berlin, worked on an upcoming project at the NS Documentation Center in Munich, and developed a publication on my work Exodus. The retreat in Schöppingen gave me the opportunity to bundle and continue these different strands of my practice.”