Lana Požlep

Education

2019 – Completed secondary education at Gimnazija Celje – Center, Art Programme.

2023 – Graduated summa cum laude with a BA in Visual Communications (Photography) from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design, University of Ljubljana.

2022 – Erasmus student exchange at UMPRUM – Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague.

2023–present – MA studies in Visual Communications (Photography), Academy of Fine Arts and Design, University of Ljubljana.

Solo Exhibitions

From Time to Time, Plevnik-Kronkowska Gallery, Celje, 2017

Ironic Ending of a Common Language, P74 Gallery, Ljubljana, 2023

Concrete Bond, Maribor Photography Festival, Maribor, 2023

Do Cities Have Broad Shoulders, DobraVaga Gallery, Ljubljana, 2025

Take a Number (pop-up exhibition), Budapest Gallery, Budapest, 2025

Group Exhibitions

Noordelicht Photography Festival, Amsterdam, 2021

Dialog, Koper, 2021

Cosmic Anarchism, Novo mesto, 2021

Ponjava, Ljubljana, 2022; 2023; 2024

AppointMENT 6.0, DobraVaga Gallery, Ljubljana, 2022

Premiere, Center of Contemporary Arts Gallery, Celje, 2022

Different Worlds, Photon Gallery, Ljubljana, 2022

Achievements of the University of Ljubljana Through the Eyes of Artists, Tivoli Park, Ljubljana, 2023

Influx 18 (with Hana Podvršič), Faculty of Arts Gallery, Ljubljana, 2023

Boredom, DobraVaga Gallery, Ljubljana, 2024

We Love to See You Fail, Photon Gallery, Ljubljana, 2024

Kela Crashes KFF, Kranj Photo Festival, Kranj, 2024

A Space with a Potentiality for a Shift, Moderna Gallery, Ljubljana, 2024

Fresh Fishes, DobraVaga Gallery, Ljubljana, 2024

Curatorial Encounters, Nova Gorica Gallery, 2025 (as part of the Kela collective)

Bonbon O! (catalogue release exhibition), Cankarjev dom, Ljubljana, 2025

Unfinished Business III (projection), Alkatraz Gallery, Ljubljana, 2025

Context 008 (with Hana Podvršič), Old Power Station – Bunker Production, Ljubljana, 2025

Publications

Likovne besede, Spring issue, 2022

Catalogue Bonbon, Academy of Fine Arts and Design (ALUO), 2025

Awards & Distinctions

2021 – University of Ljubljana / Faculty of Social Sciences Award for outstanding achievements and extracurricular collaboration (Understanding AT Rog, 2006–2021).

2023 – Acquisition of works from the series Armature for the Academy of Fine Arts and Design art collection.

2024 – Nominee, Fine Art Photography Awards, Experimental Photography category.

2024 – Prešeren Award of the Academy of Fine Arts and Design for the group project Ponjava 4.

Additional Education

2021–2022 – Academia Nuts, one-year pedagogical programme in collaboration with the Ulay Foundation.

2023 – Assistant Producer, group exhibition Ponjava.

2024 – Lead Producer, group exhibition Ponjava.

2023 – Six-month online programme in exhibition production and curatorial practice with the New York–based collective Vantage Points.

2023–2025 – Member of the Ljubljana-based collective Kela.

2023–2024 – Production Assistant at Pekinpah.

2025 – Member of a student research group for the project Girls in Public Space, Faculty of Arts Ljubljana & Prostorož.

2025 – Internship at Studio Selma Selman.

Ongoing videography collaborations with Bunker, Matej Kejžar, Mala Kline, Mladi Levi Festival, Spider Festival, Pekinpah, Maska, Andreja Rauch Pozdravnik, Milan Tomašik, Platform Nest, and others.

Residencies

2025 – Artist-in-Residence, Budapest Gallery, Budapest.

Upcoming

2026 – Solo exhibition, Likovni salon Gallery, Center of Contemporary Arts, Celje, June 2026.

2026 – Internship, Tick Tack Gallery, Antwerp, April–May 2026.

Artist Statement

This text is an attempt to articulate my artistic practice through a diary-like narrative. Its shifting tone and occasional ambiguity reflect a stream of fragmented and flowing thoughts, where the present continuously intertwines with the past. Some ideas remain unresolved, while others find their closure only later, after moving forward. My artistic practice began to take clearer shape through my graduation project Armatura, which marked a decisive moment of self-understanding. Grounded in theory, the work emerged from a year-long exploration of construction sites and the concept of non-places, where entering unfamiliar spaces required searching for points of recognition.

Throughout this process, nostalgia became a central mechanism for navigating the unknown. Memories of Sunday family lunches and my grandparents—bearers of Balkan roots—resurfaced as a way of creating intimacy within spaces that initially felt distant. Their stories, once taken for granted, disappeared with their passing, only to return later as something deeply missed. This absence shaped my sensitivity to displacement, migration, and the emotional residue left behind when people move in search of better futures. The workers I encountered were not substitutes for my grandparents, but reflections of a shared condition: leaving parts of oneself behind, preserving memory rather than returning to something irreversibly altered.

In recent years, my practice has expanded toward a broader engagement with urban and architectural contexts, focusing on spaces that reveal social contradictions, failed promises, and imbalances of power. Cities increasingly appear as environments that struggle to sustain collective life, prioritizing surface-level functionality over lived experience. I approach these spaces as sites of tension and possibility—places where personal memory and broader social structures intersect, and where questions of belonging, loss, and resistance quietly emerge.