We are pleased to announce the new OCA jury members: Milenna Høgsberg (curator), Miriam Wistreich (Director of UKS), og Dušan Barok(artist) and Robel Temesegen (artist). Deputies: Zippora Elders (artist), Noor Bhangu (curator) and Øystein Aasan (artist).
The jury and the deputy members have been selected by the OCA board after a recommendation from the OCA administration. Candidates for the jury have been proposed through an open process in which individuals and institutions/organisations submitted proposals. The OCA jury is essential to the selection process for our support schemes, including International Support, as well as for our five residency programmes in Berlin, Brussels, Lusaka, Kyoto and New York. OCA has three annual application deadlines on February 3, May 3, and October 3.
We are very pleased to welcome a jury with a broad artistic and international background. Strengthening international activity and protecting artistic freedom is central to our mission, ensuring that artists can expand their opportunities. The jury plays an important role in supporting this commitment and sustaining the conditions in which artistic voices can thrive.
«Accountability and trust in the jury members’ professional independence have been central to the appointments. I’m proud to welcome a jury with such broad experience, and I have great confidence in the strength of their expertise. Welcome!» - Ruben Steinum
Milena Høgsberg is a Copenhagen-based curator working across the Nordic region. She most recently served as Director and Chief Curator of the Wanås Foundation (2022–2025) in southern Sweden, where she commissioned works by international artists for the barns and sculpture park. She also initiated the Art & Words Festival, a sensory exploration of literature and art focused on more-than-human worlds and kinships. Together with Heidi Ballet, Høgsberg curated I Taste the Future, LIAF 2017 in Henningsvær, Lofoten. Between 2011-17, she curated soloand group exhibitions with artists such as Omer Fast, Lea Porsager, Ann Cathrin November Høibo, Torbjørn Rødland, and Lotte Konow Lund, at Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, where she served as Chief Curator. She currently works independently on exhibitions, including at Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm (spring 2027), and on public art commissions in a curatorial advisory role for the New Carlsberg Foundation.
Photo credit: Christian Bang
Miriam Wistreich is the director of UKS – (Unge Kunstneres Samfund / Young Artists’ Society), an Oslo-based institution for contemporary art and a Norwegian membership organization. Founded by artists for artists in 1921, UKS has since established itself as one of Norway’s core experimental venues for the arts; convening, exhibiting, and supporting critical voices of contemporary artists, with the objective of having both an artistic and political impact within and beyond its region.
Wistreich’s current interests revolve around questions of infrastructure; how to build and sustain art spaces and structures that create more caring and equitable institutions. She was previously Artistic Director at Hotel Maria Kapel, an artist-in-residence and exhibition space in Hoorn, NL. As part of the Laboratory for Aesthetics and Ecology, a curatorial platform for planetary becoming, she co-curated the 2020 biennial Alt_Cph: Patterns in Resistance in Copenhagen, DK. She is an alumnus of De Appel Curatorial Programme and has previously worked with organisations such as I Can’t Dance I Don’t Want to be Part of Your Revolution and the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, NL and SMK – National Gallery of Denmark, DK.
Photo credit: Jennifer Steetskamp
Dušan Barok is an artist based in Oslo, working across research, curating and publishing. He is co-founder of Monoskop.org and co-host of the Multiplace community server. He studied networked media, heritage and memory in Rotterdam and Amsterdam. His recent work includes exhibition and research projects with nGbK, Torpedo, Kunstraum Lakeside, the Walker Art Center, TU Berlin, tranzit.sk, the Olomouc Museum of Art, Vašulka Kitchen Brno, and M+.
Photo credit: Signe Lidén
Robel Temesgen is an artist and researcher whose practice spans painting, installation, performance, and publication. His work explores the symbiotic relationships between people, places, and spiritual traditions, often engaging with vernacular knowledge systems and the metaphysical dimensions of everyday life. Temesgen’s long-term projects, including Adbar, Addis Newspaper, and Practising Water, investigate how cultural memory and ritual shape public space and collective experience.
Temesgen is currently a PhD fellow in Artistic Research at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts. Since 2010, he has served as a lecturer in the Painting department at the Alle School of Fine Arts and Design, Addis Ababa University.
Photo credit: Yero Adugna Itecha
