Nika Autor (b. 1982) is a Slovenian visual artist whose practice centres on socio-political inquiry through experimental video, documentary film, photography, video essays, collage, drawing and spatial video installations. She holds a BA and MA from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana and a PhD in Practice from the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, a programme combining theoretical research with artistic production.
Autor’s work explores themes of invisibility and silence, particularly in relation to suppressed histories and marginalised present-day narratives. Her practice engages with the politics of memory, migration and asylum policies, workers’ rights and the construction of collective memory. She often uses the historical format of the newsreel as both a formal and conceptual device to highlight stories erased from the dominant discourse, fostering critical reflection and recontextualising past events within contemporary struggles.
A key element of her methodology is the use of personal and oral histories to disrupt linear or institutional narratives. Her video essays and installations often resurrect forgotten accounts, linking them to the present through juxtaposition and formal montage. Works such as her video essay Red Forests (2022) and those exhibited in Happiness for You and Your Family (2019) address Europe’s migration crises, drawing parallels between historical displacement and current border politics, including the use of razor wire and state surveillance.
Autor is a founding member of Obzorniška Fronta (Newsreel Front), an informal collective of artists and theorists who produce politically engaged moving-image work. This collective approach reinforces her commitment to collaborative authorship and shared critical inquiry, positioning her work as a mode of resistance and historical intervention.
She has received numerous accolades for her work, including the Jakopič recognition (2014), the France Brenk Award (2014) and the Prešeren prize for students (2008). In 2017, she represented Slovenia at the 57th Venice Biennale with Newsreel 63, a video essay reflecting on migration and exile.
Her artworks have been presented at numerous exhibitions and film festivals in Slovenia and abroad (including the 57th Venice Biennale and venues in Rome, Tokyo, Toronto and Rotterdam).
Selected solo exhibitions include:
- Ecologies of Solidarity – Newsreels of Tomorrow, Cukrarna Gallery, Ljubljana (2024–25)
- Red Forests, Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb (2023)
- Happiness for You and Your Family, Tobačna 001 Cultural Centre, Ljubljana (2019)
- Newsreel – The News Is Ours, Jeu de Paume, Paris (2014)
Autor’s interdisciplinary and critically engaged work has positioned her as a prominent voice in contemporary visual culture, particularly in interrogating the intersections between art, activism and political memory.
