What Are You Waiting for Today?
“What Are You Waiting for Today?” is an installation by the Ukrainian artist duo etchingroom1 (Anna Khodkova & Kristina Yarosh), developed during their MQ Residency for the public space of the MuseumsQuartier. It consists of individual steles that form a wall-like image carrier and display posters of colored pencil drawings on both sides. On the front, these are overlaid with the lettering “What are you waiting for today?”.
Here, mythical, religious, and pop-cultural imagery converges with figures and objects that allude to catastrophes, transience, and emotions. Among the images are vampires, ghosts and sea monsters, unicorns and angels, coffins and crosses, clovers, broken hearts, lightning, and rain clouds. In these icons and symbols, reminiscent of graffiti imagery, etchingroom1 links the traumatic with the banal and the uncanny with the tender.
The intricate, almost chaotic drawing on the back of the stelae wall combines fragments of Vienna's urban space. etchingroom1 thus places the fragmented everyday experiences visible on the front into a spatial context that is both specific and universal. The city is understood here as a living organism in which exterior and interior spaces, infrastructure, and subway networks are interwoven into a pulsating network of perception and movement. Not dramatic events, but familiar moments determine the rhythm of daily life. However, this familiarity is permeated by a subtle sense of unease, as even the slightest deviations disrupt plans and interrupt routines.
The entire cycle of images refers to the war and conflict experiences of the two artists from Kyiv, while also making visible their individual strategies for coping with them. The work invites viewers, in times of multiple crises, to draw hope from the fragile balance of everyday life.
Curator: Elisabeth Hajek
In cooperation with tranzit.org/ERSTE Stiftung
etchingroom1 (Anna Khodkova & Kristina Yarosh), founded in Kyiv in 2016, is a Berlin-based artist duo working interdisciplinarily with printmaking, ceramics, textiles, and installation. Their practice explores urban life and fragile emotional states. International exhibitions include Future Fragments (ERSTE Foundation, Vienna, 2025), Everything Will Be Fine (Serpen’ Gallery, Berlin, 2024), By Heart (SEFO Triennial, Olomouc Museum of Art, 2024), and Safety Instructions (Annenberg Center, Philadelphia, 2024). In 2025, they participated in the EIB Institute's Artists Development Programme in cooperation with neimënster and the Cité internationale des arts in Luxembourg and Paris.
MQ Forecourt
