Viktor Hübner’s artistic practice stems from a deep natural curiosity for other human beings and their fate. He explores themes of community, displacement, ideology, and socio-political tensions using photography, audio-recordings, and written accounts. He believes in the importance of contributing fractions of the present narrative to create a perspective of time; lending awareness to the complexity of identity, society and contemporary issues.

Hübner was born in Gummersbach, Germany in 1988 to a family of ethnic Russian German repatriates who emigrated from the former Soviet Union. His family history, pervaded by identity turmoil and uprooting deep in the family tree, shaped him from a young age. The personal fates of his grandparents and relatives attuned his sense of human the experience and urged Hübner to preserve stories for posterity. From an early age he developed a fierce fascination with the arts and the story of mankind. Hübner received a Bachelor of Arts in visual communication at the University of Applied Sciences Mainz in 2016, and a Master of Fine Arts in photography at the Rhode Island School of Design in 2019. Additionally, he completed courses in ethnography at Brown University and anthropology at RISD, which greatly inform his current work. Combining his passion for history and the arts, he records small layers of contemporary history through his words and lens.

Hübner finds his subjects in different communities, in his own family, and often enough by chance when covering long distances by hitchhiking or by foot. In ‘Onkel Franz’ the viewer becomes intensely aware of the fragility of life and hope. In 2013 his uncle was diagnosed with a severe form of cancer and was given an estimate of three months to live. Hübner stood by him and and began documenting a dark and painful path, where they were left with nothing but the hope they cling to. In ‘Das Leben ist für uns.’ he visits the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Northern Iraq during the war against ISIS in 2016. This body of work gives a unique glimpse of the facets of the PKK, their ideology, aims, and influence through personal conversations with the guerrilla fighters. For his most recent project, ‘The Americans I Met’ he collects portraits of, and conversations with, people that Hübner encountered during a series of cross-country hitchhiking trips across the United States covering a distance of over 26,000 km. His journey represents an exploration of what it means to be American in the Trump era and the issues that affect Americans, both personally and politically.

In 2017 Viktor Hübner was awarded with the internationally renowned Fulbright scholarship for representing German culture in the USA for the mutual and cultural understanding of both countries. He is also the recipient of a Rosanne Somerson scholarship and a RISD Fellowship, among other awards. Hübner currently lives and works in Nümbrecht, Germany.