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Programme:

5. 3. 2026 at 19 h.
Lazar Simeunović
The Symptom of the Father

6. 3. 2026 at 19 h.
Hristijan Nashulovski
Humans

19. 3. 2026 at 19 h.
Ana Malnar
Keep Me Here

23. 3. 2026 at 18 h.
Expansion in Space (Public discussion)
Moderator: Alenka Pirman
Participants: Dunja Kukovec, Barbara Borčić, Vladimir Vidmar, Maša Žekš, Jasmina Založnik in Tatiana Kocmur.

25. 8. 2026 at 19 h.
Alja Branc Barbosa
Platonic Dances

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The need for a dedicated space where performance art can freely evolve, experiment and challenge the boundaries of its medium has become increasingly important. Performance art, one of the most significant artistic practices to emerge in the 1960s, along with artists’ book publishing and video art, played a crucial role as a democratic and emancipatory form of artistic expression, redefining contemporary art and shaping generations of artists. Today, a renewed interest in performative practices among emerging artists calls for a considered response: one that supports experimentation, dialogue and the continued development of this vital artistic language.

Slovenia offers fertile ground for the cultivation of performance art. Performative practices have long occupied a central position within Slovenian contemporary art, forming a strong tradition that continues to influence artistic production today. This legacy prompts an urge to maintain and nurture it by creating spaces that promote performance art to grow, transform and respond to contemporary conditions.

The performance-based art programme EMBODIED focuses on artistic practices that are ephemeral, time-based and embodied. These include performance art, performative lectures, durational actions and other forms that resist objectification and prioritise presence, process and experience. Initiated by the new artistic director of Škuc Gallery, Ilija Prokopiev, EMBODIED is conceived as a long-term curatorial platform that will develop into an international annual program of performative practices, primarily by young and emerging women artists. By providing visibility, institutional support, and space for research, the platform will promote new artistic voices and contribute to the contemporary discourse on performative practices.

This edition of EMBODIED features four artists: Ana Malnar, Hristijan Nashulovski, Lazar Simeunović and Alja Branc Barbosa. The programme also includes a public debate proposed by Alenka Pirman, which revisits Dunja Kukovec’s essay Expansion in Space: Marina Abramović and Ulay (Škuc Gallery, 2008). Using the essay as a critical lens, the discussion reflects on the work of Marina Abramović and Ulay in the context of their current exhibition at Cukrarna, raising questions about what the exhibition brings to the local arena and how it contributes to the development of the visual arts field in Slovenia.

Overall, the programme reflects the diversity and critical potential of contemporary performance art, pointing toward new directions for the medium while remaining in dialogue with its historical foundations.

Keep Me Here by Ana Malnar investigates endurance, vulnerability and the limits of bodily control, transforming the body into a site of ungovernable physical response. Rather than focusing on action, the work emphasises duration and exposure, as the body remains in the space until it can no longer withstand the imposed conditions. Just as materials reveal their behaviour under specific conditions, Malnar treats the body as a responsive material, exploring how it reacts, adapts and resists within a controlled environment.

Lazar Simeunović is performing The Symptom of the Father, which draws on Lacan’s concept of the Name of the Father to examine how authority, law and patriarchal structures are inscribed in the body, language and sexuality. The performance explores obedience, guilt and resistance, revealing how these dynamics are internalised across generations – particularly in relation to female and queer identities – while opening a critical space in which imposed roles and norms can be questioned.

The dance performance Platonic Dances by Alja Branc Barbosa, as the artist describes, highlights and transforms the notion of “sincere superficiality”, an honest and unironic embrace of surface-level behaviours, interests or interactions, to examine the intersections of social and virtual performance, exhibitionism and the pathologies of self-curation, self-production and self-presentation. This immersive, living algorithm of dances reflects the fragmented, meticulously curated and performative nature of contemporary identity, caught in the unfiltered landscape of plastic fantasies.

Humans a performance by Hristijan Nashulovski, builds on his previous work NONHUMANS, presented last year at the Red Dawns Festival. Like its predecessor, the performance reflects on experiences of non-belonging across diverse cultural and political contexts, as well as the strategies individuals use to negotiate a sense of home. The piece explores both historical relations and ongoing political processes, addressing how bodies have been and continue to be reduced to numbers, deemed valid or invalid. While remaining critical of the hypocrisy behind imposed commonality, the performance simultaneously insists on connection, intimacy and a homelike honesty.

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Ana Malnar (b. 2001, Slovenia) is an interdisciplinary artist working primarily in painting, also engaging with video, photography and performance. Her practice explores intersections of the body, memory and perception. She received her BA in Painting in 2024 from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana, where she is currently completing her MA, with study exchanges in Brussels and Tournai.

Lazar Simeunović (b. 2001, Serbia) is an artist working across film, photography, performance and theatre. He received his BA in Image Media from the Academy of Arts and Design in Belgrade and is currently completing his MA in Video, Animation and New Media at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana. He has held three solo shows and has participated in more than 15 group exhibitions internationally. He is also the artistic director of the Kvir Zona festival and co-founder of the Kvir Front organisation.

Alja Branc Barbosa (b. 1994, Slovenia) is a contemporary dance artist working at the intersection of choreography, performance and dance practice. Educated in Ljubljana and at the Budapest Contemporary Dance Academy, she works between Ljubljana and Budapest, developing an authorial practice focused on bodily introspection, conceptual dramaturgy and sensory experience. She creates and performs internationally, both independently and as part of the Irene Plaque collective.

Hristijan Nashulovski (b. 2004, North Macedonia) lives and works in Ljubljana. His practice moves between visual art, performance and costume design, with a strong focus on the body and its transformations. He has presented work internationally in performance, exhibition and fashion contexts, including the 6th Triennial of Young Artists 2025 in Celje and BIO28 – Biennial of Design Ljubljana, as well as at festivals and galleries across the region.

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Translation from English to Slovenian: Iva Jevtić
English proofreading: Arven Šakti Kralj
Slovene proofreading: Inge Pangos
Cover image: Ilija Prokopiev
Design: Lea Jelenko

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The Škuc Gallery programme is supported by the Ministry of Culture and the Municipality of Ljubljana.