Ernstina Eitner (b. 1992, lives and works in Berlin) engages with cultural phenomena, social questions and everyday practices. Her work comprises mainly objects, textile works and drawings, which she often brings together into installations. She works with a wide range of materials and techniques, which she draws from various contexts and develops further for her practice.
Ernstina Eitner first studied in Kiel and Szczecin – with Antje Majewski, Sophie Reinhold, Michael Beutler and Olga Lewicka, among others – and completed her degree in Fine Arts in 2023, receiving the postgraduate title of Meisterschülerin under Ina Weber at the Berlin University of the Arts. She currently also teaches there.
Her work has been shown in numerous exhibitions in Germany and abroad, including Laura Mars Gallery in Berlin (DE), Kunstraum Hase29 in Osnabrück (DE), Maison de la culture Janine-Sutto in Montreal (CA), Künstlerhaus Bregenz (AT) and Barkenhoff/Große Kunstschau in Worpswede (DE).
In 2026 she received an artist residency grant from GEDOK Schleswig-Holstein in Lübeck and took part in a duo residency at Projektraum Dose in Hamburg. In 2025 she was a fellow at Villa Fohrde. In the same year she received funding from the Projektfonds Kulturförderung Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg (district cultural fund, Berlin)for the exhibition PASSEN. In 2023 she was nominated for the L102.art Prize.
In her artistic practice, Ernstina Eitner repeatedly explores questions of origin and cultural influence. Her starting points are craft techniques, customs, food culture, and stories that her Black Sea German family brought with them from Kazakhstan. She researches them, reconstructs what was believed lost, and reappropriates inherited knowledge. The works that emerge carry traces of a family history while asserting something of their own.