Lea Ebeling

My work combines artistic practices with social science and ethnographic research methods. As a social anthropologist critical of epistemological hierarchies, I place great importance on understanding socio-political topics in all their complexity and diversity. My artistic work is therefore characterized by meticulous attention to detail and thorough background research on the specific topic, location, or story I wish to visualize.

Contrary to modern reductionist aesthetics, I collect multiple visible and invisible, real and fictional elements and reassemble them into landscapes, cities, worlds, and stories in which the eye can embark on a journey of discovery. Chaotic at first glance, the conglomeration of recognisable and unexpected elements reveals the multiplicity of life, queering reality while not taking refuge in the abstract. Thus, it is a non-elitist invitation to all kinds of audiences to discover the complexity of the known.

While my artistic process is often tedious, it also explores the possibilities of very simple materials, like one pen on a wall or a piece of paper. This is rooted in my own experiences coming from a lower class background and it is also why it is personally important to me to make science and art more widely accessible. With a focus on science communication for adults, I have so far realised projects on feminism, classism, environment and nature conservation, social justice, decolonization, and mental health.

My first (ethno)graphic novel, ‘Hoping When the World Hurts: An Ethnographic Comic about Decolonial and Anti-Capitalist Futures,’ will be published by Unrast Verlag in March 2026. It is the comic version of my master's thesis, in which I collected decolonial and anti-capitalist future imaginaires with activists from different fields of struggle and explored drawing as a critical, collaborative research method.