Slovenia announces 2026 Prešeren Prize winners
Dancer and choreographer Mateja Bučar and Saša J. Mächtig, an architect and industrial designer best known for creating the iconic K67 kiosk, are the winners of the 2026 Prešeren Prize, the top national accolade for lifetime achievement in the arts.
They will be honoured at an awards ceremony on 7 February, the eve of Culture Day, CE Report quotes The Slovenia Times.
As is the custom, six other artists received the Prešeren Fund Prizes for individual accomplishments in the past three years, but the main honour, the lifetime achievement award, has traditionally gone to two recipients for the past two decades.
This year marks the fourth consecutive time it has been awarded to both a woman and a man. In what is another win for gender parity when it comes to prizes, this year's number of female recipients of the Prešeren Fund Prizes is six - the highest ever.
Unique choreographic oeuvre
Bučar, 68, has won the lifetime achievement award for her choreographic oeuvre that is unique in Slovenia.
"Its multimedia nature places her choreography outside the realm of exclusively movement-based art," the Prešeren Fund board said in announcing the winners on 3 December.
Her works are choreographic situations that constantly push the boundaries of the choreographic medium and deconstruct it from within, it added, noting that she has challenged the viewer's perception of dance and the human body.
Bučar studied classical and contemporary ballet techniques at the Centre de Danse International Rosella Hightower in Cannes, France and was part of the Slovenian National Opera and Ballet Theatre ensemble in Ljubljana from 1980 to 2004.
In 1986 she joined the Ljubljana Dance Theatre (PTL), a contemporary dance troupe established two years earlier by Ksenija Hribar, another dance icon in Slovenia. There, Bučar founded in 1999 the DUM association of artists, where she has created over 20 productions.
Some of her works include Discipline as Condition for Freedom (1996), in which she transformed the entire ambience of the Ljubljana opera house into an art object, as well as Telborg (1999), Media-Medici (2001), and O Quadrate (2002). After 2000, she began a series of light projection choreographies, such as Concept of the Concept (2004), Room & Road (2005), Brothers Karamazov / Worldwide - Vol. 1 (2006) and Brothers Karamazov / Made In China - Vol. 2 (2008), and Sorry, Out Of Ideas (2009).
In 2010, Bučar presented a new paradigm in her choreographic oeuvre. Her series of location-specific works Green Light (2010), Parking Packing (2012), Misfits, Unfathomables (2013), Dancers Without Answers (2018) are placed in various functional environments and urban spaces.
The judging panel also highlighted her Parquet Ball / Nad parketom (2020), where the floor, the central ally of the dancing body and its movement, is transformed into a large ball with which the dancer is entangled in a duet.
Industrial design icon
A key personality of Slovenian industrial design and architecture, Mächtig is honoured in recognition of "his creative breadth and visionary thinking, which decades ahead of its time shaped the way we use, experience, and understand public space," the lifetime award justification reads.
Mächtig, 84, is most known as the father of the K67 kiosk. He designed the polyfiber, steel and glass K67 module in 1966 as a flexible multi-purpose system that can be used in many variations and configurations and can be expanded almost endlessly.
The kiosk went on to become an icon of global industrial design, a rare Slovenian design product to make its mark not just locally but also internationally. It has been part of the 20th-century design collection of the New York Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) since the 1970s.
Mächtig's architectural modular systems, bus shelters and urban furniture have redefined the standards of public space with their durability, technological rationality, and exceptional aesthetic consistency. The introduction of modularity and adaptability into mass production was a pioneering achievement, the justification adds.
The Prešeren Prize judges point out that his work is based on a deep understanding of the relationship between technology, space, and people. "His products are the result of thoughtful, research-supported process work that goes beyond intuitive design and establishes design as a socially responsible practice."
He is also praised for his exceptional contribution to the institutional development of the profession. He was one of key persons behind the establishment of the Department of Industrial Design at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design and is one of its most influential professors.
Prešeren Fund Prizes go to six artists, five of whom are women
The Prešeren Fund Prizes for individual accomplishments in the past three years went to documentary filmmaker Petra Seliškar, poet Ana Pepelnik, performance, installation and film artist Jasmina Cibic, composer Petra Strahovnik, theatre and film actor Tina Vrbnjak, and director and cinematographer Gregor Božič.
The winners were declared as Slovenia celebrates the Merry Day of Culture to mark the birthday of its national bard France Prešeren (1800-1849).
The prizes will be presented on 7 February, the eve of Culture Day, which coincides with the anniversary of Prešeren's death.
Photo: STA
