Slovakia’s most outstanding artists and artistic achievements in 2022

Joanna Kozuch

for directing the animated film Bolo raz jedno more.../Once Upon a Time There Was a Sea…

Joanna Kozuch is a director, creative artist, and animator. She has been working as a pedagogue at the Academy of Performing Arts in  Bratislava, where she completed her doctoral studies. The film Bolo raz jedno more.../Once Upon a Time There Was a Sea… tells a story of the dying Aral Sea while capturing the tragedy of individuals living in Muynak. The town citizens lost a treasure, which meant everything to them because of political decisions beyond their control. The director brings us the stories of the last town citizens remembering the glittering pride of a fishing superpower, dreaming of returning to the great waters. The presence represents a graveyard of ships that will never leave the harbour again.

Valeria Schulczová, Zuzana Fialová, Gabriela Dzuríková, Ivana Kuxová, Jakub Rybárik, Branislav Bystriansky and Darina Abrahámová

for the co-authorship of the production 24, Slovak National Theatre

A story that’s already ours. The production entitled 24 is based on real events. We have discovered an unknown fear with the war in Ukraine. The production is about us, about the values we want to defend, about the hope we strive to find. It’s about solidarity and humanity. In the story, you will experience a confession of actors, stand-up performance and also the actors who wrote parts of their texts themselves, directly addressing the audience. The fates of Ukrainian refugees, attitudes of the Russian side but especially our own opinion on what is happening makes this production exceptionally topical. We need to strengthen ourselves to know that we are not alone in the madness of history. In the theatre we can do it, at least for a while. 

Marcel Holubec W.

for the fashion collection Concréte

Marcel Holubec W. is inspired by the life
circumstances he currently experiences. In 2022, he crossed a new threshold covered by dust and found there a new home, studio, and showroom. With a strong aesthetic sense and playful sophistication, the designer focused on the architectural
shapes, exceeding individual categories for casual and conceptual wear. His models are of neutral colours, having the shades of grey, black with blue
accent and materials typical for the author: silk satin, chiffon and silk
organza, wool, cotton, leather, and neoprene. The designer’s collection also uses a pleated technique, significant for his work. The CONCRÈTE collection is a result of collaboration of Marcel Holubec W. with Mikina Dimunova.

Stanislav Palúch

for the music of the performance Pašie/Passion, SĽUK (Slovak State Traditional Dance Company)

Stanislav Palúch studied violin at the Conservatory of Music in Žilina and the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava. He stands out as a versatile
player on the Slovak music scene, oriented in swing, fusion, world music and
folk music. Passion – a story of man and land, is a scenic fresco about two
archaic forms of the struggle between life and death. The first one is a traditional folk culture with the images of calendar customs associated with the cycle of the changing of winter and the arrival of a new, invigorating spring. The second form represents a biblical story from the New Testament of the betrayal, persecution, captivity, passion, and crucifixion of Jesus Christ. The aim of the performance is to present the story of man and land, a living tradition and biblical themes using contemporary artistic means, language of theatre, dance, and music.

Mila Haugová

for the collection Z rastlinstva/Of the Flora, Skalná ruža publishing house

Mila Haugová writes poetry, autobiographical prose, and essays. Her poems have been translated and published in six languages. Besides several domestic prizes, she was awarded a prestigious international literary prize Vilenica in Slovenia in 2020. In her latest collection of poems Z rastlinstva/Of the Flora, the author continues with the humanistic line of her present work. Her main inspiration is derived from relationships of love between man and woman, mother and daughter and now also granddaughters, with a deep interest in life connected with nature and how to live in harmony of people, animals and plants. Haugová is interested in the passage of time and the effect it has on human evolution. Her works often depict memories of previous generations. She believes in a life in which conscience is guided by heart and purity of thought. The collection is divided into three sections and several smaller cycles that functionally organise the eruptive writing of Haugová.

András Cséfalvay

for the exhibition Darwiniana: koncept súťaže v prírode a jeho pôvod v jazyku kapitalizmu/Darwiniana: The Concept of Competition in Nature and its Origin in the Language of Capitalism, East Slovak Gallery, Košice

András Cséfalvay studied fine arts at the Newcastle University and Academy of Fine arts and Design in Bratislava, where he has been working as a
pedagogue since 2014. He has presented his works in many European cities and in New York. Cséfalvay is a visual artist, creates stories, installations and videos using digital technologies. He is a co-founder of a digital art platform at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design. Understanding power and dominance, the importance of levels of biodiversity and the birth of competition are all linked to the history of evolution. To compete is natural. All animals compete. Or so we tell ourselves and make conclusions for our social behaviour, which reflects the external natural world. Competition is natural as long as our model of nature is built on the ideas of competing units. 

Vera Lacková

for directing the documentary Ako som sa stala partizánkou/How I Became a Partisan

Vera Lacková is a filmmaker whose work fights especially stereotyping and discrimination against the ethnic minorities. Among the stories that fade from memory are the fates of the Roma partisans during the Second World War. In the film, the director tells the stories of her great-grandfather Ján Lacko and three other Roma partisans. Her motivation is to refute the stereotype of Roma people as war victims and to highlight those Roma people, whose deeds go beyond the history of a minority ethnic group and
deservedly form part of European history. The film Ako som sa stala partizánkou/How I Became a Partisan won one of the main prizes – Cultural Diversity Award at the goEast festival in Wiesbaden. 

Mária Schumerová, Annamária Janeková and Romana Ondrejkovičová

for the co-authorship of the play and interpretation of characters in the production Generácia Z: Krása nevídaná (Projekt tolerancie)/Generation Z: The Beauty Unseen (Project of Tolerance), P. O. Hviezdoslav Theatre

The beauty unseen. The beauty as a straitjacket. The myth of beauty is a social construct, which from a very young age instils in girls the idea of what they should be. To be a good daughter, good wife, good mother, lover, citizen, Christian. No longer can young women, in a society that constantly demands something of them, pressure to perform, perfectionism,
ambition, monetization, and is at the same time patriarchal, be set up to
conform. How to defend against this? How to cope with it and not lose
self-confidence and self-worth? The project was created in collaboration with the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava.

Terézia Denková

for the concept, dramaturgy, and visual communication of the alternative gallery Typogaráž/Typogarage

Terézia Denková studied visual communication at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava, graphic design at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and media design at the Pan-European University in Bratislava. Typogarage is an alternative place for contemporary typography, creation of fonts and graphic design of publications and printed materials. It combines and cumulates a gallery space, a laboratory with workshops and a scene for lectures and events. The building/space of the garage is chosen for several reasons. First of all, the intention is to “recycle” the urban spaces, revitalise them, make them special and functional. The second reason is the “do it yourself” work that finds its retreat in garages, in many ways similar to the work of typographers, font creators, designers and book creators.

Gleb

for the album BIG BOY FM, Universal  music publishing house

Gleb is one of the leading Slovak hip-hop artists. Characteristic styles for his work are grime, drum’n’bass or glitch
hop. His work is mainly inspired by the culture of Great Britain, and he does
not classify himself as a classic Slovak rapper. In his album BIG BOY FM, Gleb shows a continued distance from his initial style of drum’n’bass, with almost every song resembling more of a classic 90’s rap with multiple modern elements. The album managed to reach one million streams on the music platform over the first two days of its release.

Nicol Hochholczerová

for the novel Táto izba sa nedá zjesť/You Cannot Eat This Room, KK Bagala publishing house

Nicol Hochholczerová studies at the Department of Graphics of the Academy of Arts in Banská Bystrica.
The novel Táto izba sa nedá zjesť/You Cannot Eat This Room is her book debut and was ranked among the ten best books of the Anasoft litera 2022 literary competition. Translations of the novel into four other languages are currently being prepared.

“There are debuts that are groping, awkward, qualitatively unbalanced, but this is not one of them. Hochholczerová doesn't try to style  herself into anything, she doesn't pander to majority taste, writes like HER  and isn't afraid to delve into topics that aren't openly discussed. This book  can be devoured but its contents will remain undigested and fermenting inside us for a long, very long time. And that´s a good thing.“ (Ivana Gibová, author)

Denis Kozerawski and Peter Kašpar

for the document/video installation Kambium 1492, Biennale of Art, Prague

Kambium 1492. “Trees are not silent. They are telling us what happened. Nature’s memory has been engraved into them over the years.” Rapper Čavalenky is telling a story of an oak forest. A story of trees with roots reaching back to the period before the Anthropocene, whose wood had
helped humankind to the most pivotal historical moments. Trees whose value is only viewed, in spite of everything, through the lens of the market, because they are only valuable to us when they are cut down, sliced and sold ...