Lena Gätjens
Lena Gätjens works as a lighting, stage and costume designer for independent theatres as well as lighting designer in architectural contexts. As a multidisciplinary (light) artist she works on site-specific installations, art-on-building projects and interventions in public space. Her installations and sculptures are often designed to be touchable or usable.
The focus of the often collectively created works lies in the participatory, in the public space, in the intervention in everyday life.
The alternation of micro- and macro-view, which she has internalized as a stage designer, continues in her dealings with light and seeing. Her light installations and objects (often) move on a human scale, want to be approachable, remind us of something we know, or draw on fragments of everyday life.
Artistic exploration of the interrelationships between seeing, perception, and light is usually the starting point for site-specific or material-specific works. In reconciling the subjective with the views of others, we practice respect and empathy. The potential of art forms in public space is to affect the everyday life of those who pass by.
collective works
Lena Gätjens works as one 3 of 333 – a light art collective that creates art-in-public and art-in-architecture projects with both daylight and artificial light. They are currently planning the construction of a new organ for the Zionskirche, Berlin.
Together with Eva Nina Lampič and Fabian Löwenbrück she works as Potential Failure on devised performance / theatre pieces. The projects A Collaboration That Never Dies and The Replaced are their first projects.
With Christina Helena Romirer Lena Gätjens conceived Cloudy Predictions, a site-specific art project in public space comprised of cyanotype flags and postcards with textwork.
With Paul Pritz and Christina Helena Romirer they work on media art installations {Magic Bonus, Bekenntnis und Konfrontation, With the light’s out it’s less dangerous}, which have been exhibited in Für morgen ist eine Prognose nicht sinnvoll (Forum Stadtpark 2020).
Gätjens and Pritz devised together the kinetic site-specific installation Landing on Planet B. At the moment Pritz/Romirer/Gätjens are working on Sensory Space.
With POMC (Plus ou moins cirque) she developed 2016-21 the site specific performance series UNMEASUREMENT. The show FELDMESSUNG/ ARPENTAGE/ SURVEYING emerged as a follow-up project. It is a performative theatre piece for people from 5 years onwards and is touring sine 2022.
As Jens of Horst-Jens Olé they sometimes appear with a mobile telephone booth in the public space that they set up and let it ring to provoke honest and truly anonymous conversations, with their project TELEFONZELLE.
workshops
2026
> „Bilder-Comic-Buch“, Jugendkunstschule Treptow-Köpenick, Berlin
> „Smoke and Mirrors“, Workshop for experimenting with light, projection, mirrors and smoke, Klasse Bewegtes Bild und Film, Kunsthochschule Kassel
> „Charly rennt“, Theatreclass, collaborative costume- and stage design, Helmut-Hoover-Schule Berlin-Wedding (15 – 16 y.)(June ’25 – Jan ’26)
2025
>„Fantastische Welten“, Jugendkunstschule Treptow-Köpenick (7 – 9 y.) (Sep ‘25 – Jan‘26)
> Theatreworkshop with Rika Weniger, Projekthof Karnitz, Stavenhagen (15 – 16 y.)
> „Fantastische Welten“, Jugendkunstschule Treptow-Köpenick (7 – 9 y.) (Jan ‘25 – July ‘25)
> „Fantastistan und Futurisdorf“, Jugendkunstschule Treptow-Köpenick (6 y. +) ( easter holiday workshop)
> „Messen in Altona“, Grundschule Mendelssohnstraße, Hamburg, Kulturagentinnen Hamburg (10 y. +) (22. – 25.4.25)
2024
> „Feldmessung Workshop“, Fundus Theater Hamburg, (Adults)
> „Messen hoch drei“, Stadtteilschule Hamburg-Lurup, for Knall & Forsch / Kulturagentinnen Hamburg (11 y. +)
> „Fantastische Welten“, Jugendkunstschule Treptow-Köpenick (Sept ‘24 – Jan ‘25) (7 – 9 y.)
2014
> „Stories Make Art“, workshop for experimenting with light, Grandhotel Cosmopolis, Augsburg (Adults and accompanied kids)
> „deconstruct to reconstruct“, temporary upcycling-outdoor-workshop at Textilmuseum, Augsburg (July – Aug.)
2013 > open light- and luminaire workshop, Grandhotel Cosmopolis, Augsburg (Feb. – May)
architectural lighting design references
– Klagenfurt Botanical Garden, exhibition lighting for ÜBER.LEBEN, Buero 41A (exhibition design) & Expedit Studio für Architektur (architecture)(2025 – ongoing)
– Custom Lighting Design, Sing Blackbird Vintage, Berlin (2025)
– Abschiedsraum Kinderklinik Ausgburg, together with Juliane Stiegele (2013-14)
Find more lighting projects here or here or here.
Architectural Lighting Design a freelancer for:
– Dipol (2021-22)
– Studio Licht Licht (2021-22)
– Studio De Schutter (2020-21)
– Meylenstein
portfolio
download pdf portfolio click here