Lena Skrabs

Lena Skrabs was born in Hamburg/Germany. Before coming to Weimar, she did her BA degree in Art-Education-Therapy at Alanus University of Arts and Social Sciences in Bonn/Germany. During her master studies she was partially living in Tokyo, spending one year at Tokyo University of the Arts in the Intermedia Arts department. g.a.d.o. is a duo of great artists doing ok, consisting of Paloma Sanchez-Palencia and Lena Skrabs. They met each other in the MFA program Public Art and New Artistic Strategies at Bauhaus University Weimar and are collaborating ever since. The duo is based in Berlin and elsewhere. The work of g.a.d.o. is saturated with obviousness, cliches and silly jokes. They are deeply interested in everydayness, in the extraordinary of the ordinary, in collections of all sorts, in presentations, organizations, situations, in the investigation of artistic, domestic and service systems. Work, leisure and the celebratory possibilities of the mundane are their main topics of research and practice. Their work englobes small and big gestures, fruit stickers, piñatas and always some sort of disappointment. In 2018 g.a.d.o. have been artists in residence at Leitrim Sculpture Centre/Ireland and PLATFORM in Vaasa/Finland. Together with Ina Weise and Melina von Gagern they are currently producing the Who Knows? Fortune Teller Hotline, funded by the Senate of Berlin. The project will be presented in public space throughout Kreuzberg by the end of the year. Moreover, Lena and Paloma are working on their first game publication by their independent publishing house g.a.d.o. Press.