Biography

Apolonija Šušteršič is a visual artist, architect, researcher and educator, based in Oslo and Ljubljana. Her work is a critical analysis of space, usually focused on institutional and cultural politics, urban planning and architecture, and it often involves collaboration with architects, urban planners, curators, sociologists and the local population.

Education

She graduated in architecture from the School of Architecture, University of Ljubljana (1985–1992), and completed postgraduate studies at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam (1994–1996). She completed her PhD at Lund University, Malmö Faculty of Fine and Performing Arts, Sweden (2008–2013), with the dissertation Hustadt, Inshallah: Learning from a participatory art project in a trans-local neighbourhood. In 2014–2015 she held a postdoc position at the Institute for Architecture and Built Environment, LTH, Lund University, within Architecture in Effect: Rethinking the Social in Architecture, with the project Performativity and Urban Action.

Teaching and positions

Since 2022 she has been an external examiner for the Situated Practice MA and the PG Certificate in Advanced Architectural Research at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, London. From 2014 to 2020 she was Professor in Visual Art and head of the MFA programme Art & Public Space at KHiO, the Oslo National Academy of the Arts. Earlier she was Professor in Visual Art and head of the Sculpture Department at the Royal College of Art, London (2012–2013), and Professor in Visual Art and head of the Monumental Department at the Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm (2003–2008). She was a visiting artist at the Center for Curatorial Studies and Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College, and at the Department of Architecture, MIT (both 2008), and at the Trondheim Academy of Fine Art, NTNU (2000–2002).

Projects and exhibitions

She has realised projects and exhibitions in contemporary art institutions and public space around the world, among them Moderna Museet Projekt in Stockholm (1999), Manifesta 2 in Luxembourg (1998), the Berlin Biennale (2001), Kunstverein München (2002), Ibid Projects in London (2003), BildMuseet in Umeå, the Common Guild and Edinburgh International Festival (2007), Luxembourg Cultural Capital (2007), CGAC in Santiago de Compostela, the Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst in Leipzig (2010), Artes Mundi 5 in Cardiff (2012), Emscherkunst (2013), the Gwangju Biennial (2016), the Art Encounters Biennial in Timișoara (2019), the U3 triennial in Ljubljana (2024) and the Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale in Riyadh (2024).

Her long-term projects include Light Therapy (1999–2020), restaged at several museums; Neighbours & Citizens in Gävle (from 2014) and its growing network of apple trees; Underground Discussion Club (2015–2019) in London, Tromsø and Baerum; the Hustadt project in Bochum (2009–2013); and, since 2021, NJOKOBOK in Oslo with Youssou Diop, with Neighbourhood Mondays, Roundtable Cooking and the Njokobok Bar at the Diriyah Biennale. Other recent work includes Becoming Local in Oslo, A Political Classroom at Tensta Konsthall, A Palestine Archive (2024) and Beyond Building Site at MG+MSUM in Ljubljana (2025).

Writing and publications

She has published widely on participation and urban action, among others in Acting in Common (with Meike Schalk and Gunnar Sandin) and Hustadt Actions, and edited, with Urška Jurman, an issue of the journal AB – arhitekturni bilten on participation in architecture and urbanism (2011). A book on NJOKOBOK is in preparation (Art & Theory, Stockholm). Her work has been published in numerous exhibition catalogues; a selected bibliography and a list of her writings are on the Publications and Texts pages.