Balkan Contemporary Art Prize
Awards ceremony photos
"Emerging Artist" Award
→Martin Atanasov
Martin Atanasov is a visual artist and researcher working in the fields of visual anthropology and queer archives. His practice explores the queer body and the intersections between the poetic and the political.
Awards ceremony photos
"Innate INAT" Award
→Mila Panic
Mila Panić (b. 1991) is a Bosnian-born artist and stand-up comedian. Her artist's practice lies at the intersection of visual art and stand-up comedy. Fields that rarely speak with each other meet in my practice, showing that criticality can remain playful and accessible. From drawing to stand-up comedy, Mila became known for her dark humour and ironic twist, capturing audiences with her sharp wit and fearless commentary. In joking against the normalisation of fear and violence, Panić moves to liberate language from the individual despair that one cannot change the world. That change takes place every time she jokes, and every time the audience laughs in return. She is the co-founder of the collective and association Fully Funded Residencies.eV., which provides an overview of paid opportunities for all cultural workers. Her most recent exhibitions were: 13th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art, Art Encounters Biennale in Romania, GMK (Zagreb), eastcontemporary Gallery (Milan), Kuenstlerhaus Sootburn (Hamburg), POST (Arnhem), Autostrada Bienalle (Prizren) etc. Panic is the winner of ZVONO YVVA of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and recipient of a number of scholarships such as the NEUSTART Stiftung Kunstfond Bonn grant for 2023, Braunschweig Projects artist grant 2022/23, , Künstlerhaus Lukas, Ahrenshoop, Residency Unlimited, New York (US), etc. She is based in Berlin, Germany.
Awards ceremony photos
"Poetics of Resistance" Award
→Borjana Ventzislavova
BORJANA is an cross--disciplinary artist who works in the fields of film/video, installation, photography, performative and media art. Her works have been exhibited internationally in solo and group shows as well as at media art and film festivals, including, National Gallery Sofia, Kunstforum Wien, Belvedere21, MAK Vienna, MAK Los Angeles, Lentos Linz, Museum of Modern Art Salzburg, Salzburger Kunstverein, Museum of Modern Art Carinthia, Museum of Modern Art - Esterházy Foundation, MUSA, Sofia Arsenal - Museum of Contemporary Art, Sofia City Art Gallery, Landesgalerie Linz, Essl Museum, k/haus, quartier21, Gallery bäckerstrasse4, Gallery Ostlicht, Thomas K. Lang Gallery, BCI “Wittgenstein House” in Vienna, Kunstraum Kreuzberg / Bethanien, Kurt-Kurt, LS43 in Berlin, Radiator Arts Gallery in NYC, Austrian Cultural Forum Washington DC and London, ICA London, Academia gallery, Sofia, ICA Sofia, Art Today Plovdiv, Hunt gallery, St. Louis, US, Cologne Conference, IDFA, Diagonale, Graz, EMAF, Osnabrück, transmediale, Berlin, filmwinter, Stuttgart, Rencontres Internationales, Berwick Film and Media Arts Fest., Moscow Int. Filmfest., Int. Short Film Fest. Istanbul, Split Film Fest., etc. She received the promotion award by the City of Vienna 2017, the Austrian State Scholarship for Fine Art 2013, numerous grants and awards for projects, Start Scholarship for Fine Art 2009, winner of Top Ten Nonfiction Award at Cologne Conference 2006, Otto Prutscher Fonds Award 2006, Susmannstiftung Award 2005, recognitions at Art in Motion 2002, Los Angeles, Ars Electronica, 2002, Linz, CYNETart 2001, Dresden. She was artist in residence in London (ACF), Rom (BKA), Newcastle (ISIS Arts), Berkeley (Kala Art/CEC Artslink), Los Angeles (MAK Schindler), Chicago (BKA), Athens (Snehta), Banff (Banff Center/BKA), NYC (ISCP/BMKOES), Andratx (CCA). Her works are part of private and public colletions among Foto collection of BKA, Vienna, Collection of the city of Vienna, MUSA, Collection of National Art Gallery, Sofia, 21er Haus / Belvedere, Vienna, LENTOS Linz, Essl /Albertina, Estherhazy, Angerlehner Collections in Austria, a.o. In her works Borjana analysis playfully stereotypical roles and models of representations and the impact of political and social structures and control mechanisms on our existence. Her work addresses issues of mobility and crossing of socio-geographical and cultural borders and deal with the complex process of communication and translation. Focusing on documentary and narrative structures and constructions, she mixes stages and situations, still and moving image, text and sound into cases and stories that test the line between personal and social, examine the interaction between individual and collective in the frame of current events and history. In her concern with the strategies of re-positioning, manipulation and perception, Ventzislavova’s work draws attention to the permeable borders between documentary and fiction and tries to reveal those structures of a society that are located below the representative surface. She has been granted honorable Austrian citizenship for her achievements in visual arts.
Awards ceremony photos
