Photo: P74 Gallery Archive
On Thursday, 26 March 2026, the expert jury met to select nominees for the 2026 OHO Group Award.
The expert jury consisting of Barbara Borčić (curator and critic, Ljubljana), Mojca Grmek (artistic director, Pivka House of Culture), Miroslav Karić (curator, Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade) and Tadej Vaukman (visual artist, Ljubljana) unanimously selected this year’s nominees.
The nominees are:
Živa Božičnik Rebec
Ajda Kadunc
Tajda Stiplovšek Jug
Jernej Šimec
A total of 34 applications were received in response to the public call. We thank all artists for their participation, and sincerely congratulate the nominees.
The OHO Group Award, established by the P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Institute in 2005, is the central national award for young visual artists. The award is part of the international Young Visual Artist Award network that unites non-governmental organisations from Central and Eastern Europe. The New York residency is organised in cooperation with American partners, namely the Trust for Mutual Understanding, New York, and Residency Unlimited, New York, the latter of which coordinates the artists’ stays and work in the USA. After a two-month artistic residency in New York, the award winner will showcase a solo exhibition at the P74 Gallery in Ljubljana.
The selection of the OHO Group Award 2026 winner will continue in the first half of May 2026 in Ljubljana, when the expert jury will announce the winner after viewing the nominees’ exhibition and conducting individual interviews.
Photo: Živa Božičnik Rebec
Živa Božičnik Rebec (1991, Ljubljana) studied at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana, graduating in Unique Design – Glass and Ceramics (2010–2014), completing her MA in Video and New Media at the Department of Sculpture (2014–2016). Her artistic practice is speculative and object-oriented, as well as investigative in technology and materials and their substantial chimaeras and alterations. She is invested in projects connected to the concept of exiting, or rather to external space, and to the relations with the ecological turn in philosophy, as well as with environmental estrangements and their technological changes, collapses, and developments. Her work is precise through technology and production, the processuality of work, how and what this means for the distribution of artworks, the display of projects, architectural placement and geopolitical location. Her works have been exhibited in Slovenia and abroad, most recently at the Industrial Biennial in Istria, Croatia, Kućća Project Space Zagreb, Croatia, Aksioma Project Space, U30+ Ljubljana, Plaza Protokol platforms – various locations Šum/Atol, Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova, Museum of Modern Art Ljubljana, Nova pošta/Maska magazine Ljubljana, International Centre of Graphic Arts Tivoli Mansion, Škuc Gallery, and elsewhere.
Photo: Ajda Kadunc
Ajda Kadunc (1995, Ljubljana) completed her master’s degree in painting at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana in 2024. During her master’s degree, she also attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki through the 2020 Erasmus+ program. She has participated in several solo and group exhibitions, including FOMO Art Space (Zurich, 2026), Mediterranea 20 – Biennial of Young Artists (Nova Gorica, 2025), 2^32 Project Space (Ljubljana, 2025), Cankar Centre (Ljubljana, 2025), Tkalka Gallery (Maribor, 2024), Alkatraz Gallery (Ljubljana, 2024), Simulaker Gallery (Novo mesto, 2023), Knifer Gallery (Osijek, 2022), Layer House (Kranj, 2021), and the 4th International Student Biennial (Split, 2021). Her work explores meaninglessness as a moment in time when changes begin to unfold, opening new possibilities for understanding. She is interested in the newly established meaning created by the stories of different elements and surfaces in relation to the space in which they land. She lives and works in Šentvid pri Stični.
Photo: Tajda Stiplovšek Jug
Tajda Stiplovšek Jug (1999, Celje) is an intermedia artist. She graduated from the Department of Sculpture and Contemporary Art Practices at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in 2022, under the mentorship of Mag. Jože Barši and dr. Tomo Stanič. As part of the Erasmus+ study exchange, she studied at the University of Linz in the Department of Sculpture – Transmedia Space (2021) and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Leipzig in the Department of Space and Installation (2022). She has participated in several group exhibitions, including the Melting exhibition at the Alkatraz Gallery (2021), the Primavera exhibition at the DLUM Gallery (The Society of Fine Artists Maribor, 2021), and the exhibition Wit Power: Climate Protection Instead of Fake News at Group Global 3000 (Berlin, 2025). She participated in the 2025 Triennial of Young Artists (Premiere 2025: Fields of Intimacy, Transitions and Potentials of the Medium) in Celje and the Biennale Mediterranea (Borderless) in Nova Gorica. Her solo projects include the Trieda exhibition at the Open Term for a Young Intermedia Artist program of the P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Institute (P74 Gallery, 2024) and The Messenger exhibition at the Tkalka Gallery (2025), where she presented The Refrigerator as Exhibition Space.
Photo: Jernej Šimec
Jernej Šimec (1997, Ljubljana) is a visual artist and photographer whose work focuses on the intersection of photography, sculpture, and performative practices. He graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana, where he is currently completing his master’s degree in photography. He expanded his interdisciplinary approach through study exchanges in Warsaw and Lisbon. There, he broadened his artistic interests to include walking as an artistic method and spatial intervention as a sculptural practice. Walking serves in his artistic practice both as an aesthetic strategy and as a conceptual framework for spatial exploration, which he documents through various media. His works function as visual and material traces of movement, experimenting with techniques of visual-spatial mapping and examining the relationship between the body and the landscape. He has participated in several group exhibitions and presented a solo exhibition, Between Stone and Stream, at P74 Gallery (2026). He actively participates in various workshops and residencies. Šimec is the recipient of several awards and recognitions, including a special recognition for his diploma thesis – Summa Cum Laude at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design Ljubljana (2021). He is a member of the Kela collective.