Klara Debeljak selected for the MGLC Švicarija Residency for Young Artists

The International Centre of Graphic Arts public institution has published the Public Call for Applications for a Residency for Young Artists at MGLC Švicarija Residency and Creative Centre to rent out a studio at MGLC Švicarija to a young artist up to 35 years of age for a period of two years (2024–2026).

The call for applications closed on 10 January 2024. Eleven proposals were reviewed and evaluated by an expert jury consisting of Alenka Gregorič, Artistic Director at Cukrarna and Tobačna Gallery, Maja Hodošček, artist and curator at the Centre for Contemporary Arts Celje and Jure Kirbiš, curator at Maribor Art Gallery.

In accordance with the requirements of the call for applications, the jury assessed: the applicant's references in the period 2021–2023 (solo exhibitions or comprehensive solo projects; participation in group exhibitions at referential contemporary art venues; other activities; prizes, awards, special mentions and purchased works), media responses and critiques of the applicant's work to date, and the presentation of the applicant's work programme for the duration of the residency. Of the applications received, the jury gave the highest score to the proposal of visual artist and researcher Klara Debeljak, who will be the new Young Artist-in-Residence at MGLC Švicarija for a period of two years (2024–2026).

Statement of the expert jury

The jury unanimously selected Klara Debeljak for the Artist Residency. The researcher and artist, who initially studied in Prague and later completed her studies in Graphic Design in Amsterdam, is active in the wider European region. In recent years, she has been actively exhibiting, publishing texts, designing and is currently working as a researcher at the Institute of Network Cultures in the Netherlands, as confirmed by her references. The Švicarija Artist Residency programme represents an excellent link between the artist's work and activities to date and the issues that are increasingly gaining prominence also in Slovenia. The two-year residency in Ljubljana will focus on community research – the architectural, spatial and parallel virtual fragmentation of public and private space, using the example of the changing urbanism of Ljubljana and Slovenia. The artist will expose topics such as the convergence of the public and private spheres, the spatial fragmentation of virtual and physical architecture, the parallel virtual and political fragmentation of society and the co-determination of the topography of architecture and other (virtual) urban elements for the benefit of society. The vision of the programme, which includes lectures and workshops by international lecturers within the fields in which the artist is active and the publication of texts by various authors on these topics, completes her plan to live and work at MGLC Švicarija.

Klara Debeljak (1995, Slovenia) is a researcher and artist currently based in Amsterdam, where she graduated in July 2023 with a degree in Graphic Design from Gerrit Rietveld Academie. Her practice lies at the intersection of writing, design, printmaking and video art. She began to explore digitalisation, internet intimacy, identity and the changing concept of community through an architectural lens during her studies of Psychology at Charles University in Prague, which she completed in 2019. Over the years, her work has been exhibited in group shows in Slovenia, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Georgia, Germany and Senegal. Her texts have been translated into Slovenian, Italian and French, and published in Designers Write (the Netherlands), Nero Editions (Italy), Kajet (Romania) and Disenz (Slovenia). In 2022, she was part of the ABCND space at UNFAIR (Amsterdam), and in 2021, she was one of six designers awarded a podcast and a financial prize by Stimuleringsfonds in the Netherlands. She has worked as a designer and writer for Street Art News and The Nieuw Dakota. Since 2021, she has been a researcher for the Institute of Network Cultures.