Artist Name: Nika Ham
Residency Dates: May – June 2021
Born: 1991
Lives & Works: Ljubljana, Slovenia
Education:
2019 – M.A in Painting, Academy of Fine Art and Design, Ljubljana, Slovenia;
2014 – Winchester School of Art, UK
URL: https://nika-ham.tumblr.com/
Bio/Statement:
Nika Ham is the winner of the 2020 OHO Award.
Her practice has shifted from painting to video, digital art and performance art, markedly as a result of her part-time museum attendant job at the Museum of Modern Art in Ljubljana. Ham uses her body to outline spaces in cultural institutions and public areas by way of performing unconventional actions in front of security cameras. She obtains access to the footage that is normally accessible only to “surveillers” and turns it into an art medium. Her performative works were filmed at the Albertina museum in Vienna (2017), Salzburg museum, Austria (2019), and the Urban Nation Museum for Urban Contemporary Art in Berlin (2020). She participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions including at the Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova, gallery P74, gallery Dobra Vaga, and Ravnikar Gallery Space in Ljubljana, Slovenia, UGM gallery in Maribor, Slovenia, and gallery VN in Zagreb, Croatia.
Ham also produces graphic design, video and photographic works for the theater and club scene in Ljubljana. Since 2016 she has worked as the Artistic Director of the Graphic Department for the LET’S CEE Film Festival in Vienna. She collaborates with the Slovenian avant-garde group Laibach and works for Moderna galerija in Ljubljana.
Support: Nika Ham’s residency is made possible with support from The Trust for Mutual Understanding.
