Programme

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On Friday, November 27, the 10th Igor Zabel Award will be presented at the Museum of Modern Art in Ljubljana. A rich accompanying program will begin the day before, with events taking place at various venues across the city. The programme brings together contemporary and historical avant-garde practices, forging connections across post-socialist and post-colonial contexts and geographies, while exploring how cultural infrastructures are sustained, reimagined, or rebuilt amid shifting political realities, conflict, and war. The programme is open to all. We invite you to join us!

Award ceremony

Friday ⁄ 27. 11.

19:00 ⁄ Doors open & museum visit

20:00–21:00 ⁄ Presentation of the Award and Grant recipients, followed by a conversation with Laureate Nataliia Ivanova, moderated by journalist Kaja Puto

The Award Ceremony also features a performance by percussionist Pavel Čebašek and takes place within a scenography designed by artist Josef Dabernig.

Accompanying programme

Thursday ⁄ 26. 11.

The event brings together three conversations with this year’s recipients of the Igor Zabel Award Grant, in which they will discuss questions of displacement, exile, and both forced and professional mobility, alongside the challenges of working within and beyond institutional structures amid political and economic instability. The tackled issues will include the transformation and institutionalisation of artistic practices during periods of transition, questions of the periphery, the long-term social consequences of war, and the responses of cultural workers to these consequences. Bringing together perspectives from post-socialist and post-colonial contexts, the participants will consider how cultural infrastructures are sustained, reimagined, or rebuilt across shifting political realities and regional geographies.

Tania Arcimovich is a researcher, curator, and art writer from Minsk and is currently a postdoctoral fellow in Germany. Working across art history, theatre studies, sociology, and curatorial practice, Arcimovich investigates independent Belarusian art during political transitions and displacement.

Octavian Esanu is a curator, art writer, and Associate Professor and Art Galleries Director at the American University of Beirut. His research focuses on artistic infrastructures and the legacies of post-socialist Eastern Europe and the postcolonial Middle East, as well as the institutionalisation of artistic practice during periods of political and economic transition in these regions.

Alona Karavai is a cultural worker, curator, and art writer, as well as the co-founder and leader of Asortymentna Kimnata in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine. Currently she is based in Kyiv, exploring themes of peripheries, absence, vitality, and death. She runs the School of Death, a self-organised initiative that examines the collective culture of mourning through performative and collaborative practices.

Pia Brezavšček is a philosopher and art historian, currently working as the program co-director of the City of Women, an association that runs an annual festival in Ljubljana since 1995. Between 2019 and 2025, she was the editor-in-chief of Maska, a journal for contemporary performing arts and is the editor-in-chief of the Maska book publishing house. Her topics of interest are feminism and contemporary philosophies of the body.

Jakub Gawkowski is an art historian and Chief Curator at the Muzeum Sztuki in Łódź, where he recently co-curated the museum’s new permanent exhibition of its 20th- and 21st-century art collection. He also co-curated the 2026 Matter of Art Biennale, held in Prague and Pardubice, and is currently a PhD candidate in Comparative History at Central European University, Vienna.

Vasif Kortun is a curator, writer, and educator based in Ayvalık, Turkey. He was the founding Director of Research and Programs at SALT in Istanbul and has curated numerous exhibitions and biennials, including the Taipei Biennale (with Manray Hsu, 2008) and the 9th Istanbul Biennial (with Charles Esche, 2005).

The selection from the Kontakt Collection, entitled Grounded Sun and curated by Aleksei Borisionok, anchors around Ukrainian artist Lesia Vasylchenko’s Tachyoness, named after the hypothetical particle that travels faster than light. The video assembles more than a thousand images of sunrises over Ukraine, processed with AI technology. Works by Zbyněk Baladrán, VALIE EXPORT, Ivan Galeta, and Mladen Stilinović trouble linear perceptions of time, scale, sound, and image to engage with archives and articulate politics of time, energy, and the solar.

Featuring key figures from the Slovenian avant-garde and experimental film and video, this programme, entitled Relations and curated by Peter Cerovšek, explores the dynamics of collective creation through temporary clusters, tandems, and creative alliances. The selection traces these trajectories: from Karpo Godina’s lens capturing the “Pupilija” ensemble striving for freedom and the performative actions within Ana Nuša Dragan’s circle, to Vinko Rozman’s choreographed interplay of bodies and objects; from Miha Vipotnik’s TV studio performance manipulating voice, sound, and live video signals, alongside Franci Slak’s collaborative work with participants of the student film colony in the Karst, to Boris Petkovič’s contemporary montage of Slak’s archival footage, capturing the legendary performance duo Marko Brecelj and Ivan Volarič Feo. The programme approaches these artistic partnerships as unstable elements: short-lived and prone to decay, yet fiercely fertile and radiant precisely in their volatility.

Free tickets will be available at the box office one hour before the screening begins.

Socio-Fiction

Zbyněk Baladrán, Czech Republic, 2005–2007, digital format (filmed on 16 mm), colour, 6′42″. Part of the Kontakt Collection

Socio-Fiction builds on the interplay of revolutionary memory and forgetting, destruction and production, utopian impulse and obsolescence. Departing from the found footage archives, the voice over warns that the interstellar emptiness can remain empty even after a revolution.

Time 1

Mladen Stilinović, Croatia (Yugoslavia), 1977, digital format (filmed on 16 mm), b&w, 6′58″. Part of the Kontakt Collection

A formal exercise by Mladen Stilinović on disturbing temporality and the work of time. The film shows the minute hand of a wall clock moving forward. After two minutes the time is deranged, unsettling the relationships between past, present and future.

Space Seeing and Space Hearing (Raumsehen und Raumhören)

VALIE EXPORT, Austria, 1973–1974, video, b&w, 6′21″. Part of the Kontakt Collection

The video is a dynamic investigation into the figuration of the body in electronic media. Split in two frames, the position of the body is still, yet the electronically transmitted image is continuously manipulated via video cameras and mixers.

Sfaira 1985–1895

Ivan Galeta, Croatia (Yugoslavia), 1971–1984, digital format (filmed on 16 mm), b&w, 9′48″. Part of the Kontakt Collection

Based on the sculptural work Grounded Sun (1971) by Ivan Kožarić, the film Sfaira 1985–1895 by Ivan Galeta connects the astronomical system to the materiality of late socialist society. Through the shiny spheric surface of the sculpture and the light trajectories it reflects, the director abstracts the cosmic geometries, solar energies, and gravitational fields.

Tachyoness

Lesia Vasylchenko, Ukraine, 2022, video, colour, 8′. Courtesy of the author

The title, Tachyoness, takes its name from a tachyon, a hypothetical particle that travels faster than light. In this video work, more than a thousand images of sunrises over Ukraine are constructed into a video sequence using AI technology. The images were collected from archives, advertisements, social media, home VHS videos, covering the time period from 1990 to 2022. Tachyoness mirrors this historical period as a single event.

The Gratinated Brains of Pupilija Ferkeverk

Karpo Godina, Slovenia (Yugoslavia), 1970, DCP (filmed on 35 mm), colour, 12′. Part of the Slovenian Cinematheque Film Collection

A collage of scenes, shot in various lighting and in rainbow shades of weather, performed by a group of renowned artists. In each scene, there is a clear individual striving and dreading desire for freedom.

Communication of Gastronomy

Ana Nuša Dragan, Slovenia (Yugoslavia), 1971, digital format (filmed on 8 mm), colour, 2′45″. Part of the DIVA Station

One of the filmmaker’s early 8 mm films shows various characters sitting at a table in a garden, eating a variety of foods. The camera remains stationary as the characters enter the frame and take turns.

Ki kom pa

Vinko Rozman, Slovenia (Yugoslavia), 1971, digital format (filmed on 8 mm), b&w, 5′. Part of the Slovenian Cinematheque Film Collection

“Ki kom pa has a certain element of whimsical experimentation with space, without any intention of conveying a message, but rather of experiencing the experiment – in the best sense of the word.” – Slobodan Šijan

Videogram 4 – A Vicissitude

Miha Vipotnik, Slovenia (Yugoslavia), 1976–2026, digital format (recorded on 2″ open-reel tape in U-matic), colour, 6′13. Part of the DIVA Station

This short video illustrates the intricacy of the multimedia project Videogram 4 (1976/79). It is comprised of a performance in a television studio, an experimental video for broadcast on television, and a gallery installation. The artist has masterfully merged the participants and objects in the television studio into electronic sensations – an endless sequence of superimposed, overexposed, perforated and fractured images.

Karst 88 Project

F. Slak, G. Barbič, B. Bibič, R. Čok, M. Derganc, B. Kandolf, B. Kastelic, N. Malečkar, M. Milharčič, A. Morovič, V. Pejovič, E. Stanič, Z. Škvor, B. Žorga, Slovenia (Yugoslavia), 1981, DCP (filmed on 16 mm), colour, 8′. Part of the Slovenian Cinematheque Film Collection

A genuine lyrical-epic cinematic tour de force, brimming with unconventional cinematic techniques such as double exposures, split screens and stop-motion animation, jerky zooms, whilst at the same time offering a rich exploration of the clash between nature, humanity and civilisation. It is a collaborative work by the participants of the first film colony organised by the Centre for Student Film in Črnotiče in the Karst region. The film was edited and soundscaped by Hanna Preuss and Franci Slak.

Fi(l)m

Boris Petkovič, Slovenia, 2025, DCP, colour, 6′. Courtesy of the author

In 1979, Marko Brecelj split from the Buldožer (Bulldoser) music group. He teamed up with the poet Ivan Volarič Feo, and together they toured Yugoslavia as the musical performance act Duo Zlatni zubi (The Golden Teeth Duo). As a minimalist poet-songwriter performing duet, they undoubtedly gained cult status among the youth through their performances at grammar schools. Franci Slak filmed some of these performances in 1979. The footage, shot with a Super 8-mm camera, clearly shows the first hints of experimentation. While certain segments of the performances were captured in a documentary style, others feature innovative in-camera editing techniques, showcasing short shots, unusual camera movements and overexposure.

“Together with a group of musicians – Tomaž Grom, Samo Kutin, and Andrej Fon – we embarked on an experimental exploration. Slak’s footage and the musical score come together to create a new piece that speaks in its own unique cinematic and musical language.” – Boris Petkovič

Friday ⁄ 27. 11.

The seminar examines the historical development of Slovenia’s extensive visual arts infrastructure, its sociopolitical context, and its specificities. Focusing on examples of the Museum of Modern Art and MGLC – International Centre of Graphic Arts, both based in Ljubljana, it examines the legacy of Socialist Yugoslavia and subsequent developments on this legacy. The seminar includes lectures by Beti Žerovc and Zdenka Badovinac, and a guided tour by Božidar Zrinski and Dušan Dovč through MGLC and Švicarija Art Centre.

Beti Žerovc will present the development of the visual arts infrastructure in Slovenia, from its more concrete beginnings with the first purpose-built exhibition venue, the Jakopič Pavilion (1909), through to the 1980s. Her presentation will draw on findings from the extensive research project, Exhibiting of Art and Architecture Between Artistic and Ideological Concepts: Case Study of Slovenia, 1947–1979, which she led.

Beti Žerovc is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Arts at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. Her areas of research are visual art and the art system since the mid-19th century, with a focus on their role in society. She is the author of several books, including When Attitudes Become the Norm: The Contemporary Curator and Institutional Art (2015, reprinted in 2018), and co-editor of Shaping Revolutionary Memory: The Production of Monuments in Socialist Yugoslavia (2023) and awarded catalogue On the Brink: The Visual Arts in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (1929–1941) (2019).

Zdenka Badovinac will focus on the period from the 1980s onwards. Drawing on the development of Ljubljana’s Museum of Modern Art and Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova – institutions she played a key role in shaping – she will trace the continuities and ruptures within the legacy of modern art and its museum infrastructure.

Zdenka Badovinac is a curator and former Director of the Museum of Modern Art, Ljubljana (1993–2020; since 2011 extended to include Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova), and former Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb (2022–23). Since 2023 she has worked as an independent curator and art writer. She initiated the first Eastern European art collection Arteast 2000+ and curated numerous exhibitions of international relevance. Her recent books are Unannounced Voices: Curatorial Practice and Changing Institutions (2022) and Comradeship: Curating, Art, and Politics in Post-Socialist Europe (2019). She is a founding member of the museum confederation L’Internationale and former President of CIMAM (2010–13). In 2020 Badovinac received the Igor Zabel Award for Culture and Theory.

Božidar Zrinski and Dušan Dovč will conclude the seminar with a brief guided tour of MGLC and Švicarija Art Centre, offering insight into the socio-political context of their establishment and the factors that have shaped their development. MGLC is a museum with a forty-year history, whose origins are closely linked to the International Biennial of Graphic Arts, established in 1955. Since 2017, MGLC has also run an artist residency programme at Švicarija.

Božidar Zrinski is a curator and Museum Advisor at MGLC, where he has been responsible for the MGLC Collection since 2025. He has curated numerous solo and group exhibitions and has been involved – as a curator, coordinator, and artistic director – in several editions of the Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts. His work focuses on contemporary graphic art, particularly by Slovenian artists.

Dušan Dovč is a coordinator at MGLC, where he is responsible for coordinating the MGLC Švicarija Creative and Residency Centre. As a curator, he explores visual art in relation to literature, as well as artistic practices beyond institutions and established creative centres.

The untranquil now exhibition, curated by Corinne Diserens, features artworks primarily from the Hamburger Kunsthalle collection that explore bodies and modes of perception as agents of contradictory states and troubled histories.

The Eating Back exhibition by Špela Petrič draws on her interventions in industrial greenhouses to explore the material, ideological, and social conditions of technologically optimised environments that shape the food we consume.

Places are limited, so please register via the registration form.

The exhibition asks how to contend with the end that we are already living and will be dealing with for the foreseeable future, without veering into the utopian or dystopian, since neither hope nor despair provide a solid base or have much to contribute. What we need, then, is not just a new understanding of the end, but a completely different range of emotions for grappling with it.

Places are limited, so please register via the registration form.