H13 Lower Austria Prize for Performance 2025

Stina Fors receives H13 Lower Austria Prize for Performance 2025

This year's H13 prizewinner has been announced. The H13 Lower Austria Prize for Performance 2025 goes to the choreographer and performance artist Stina Fors. The H13 jury, consisting of Robert Gabris, Dot Zhihan Jia, Carolina Nöbauer and Frederike Sperling, reviewed 73 applications this year. In the end, Fors clearly came out on top with her project Answer Me, Pythia. Quote from Jia, Nöbauer and Sperling :

"In her two-week performance Answer me, Pythia, performance artist and choreographer Stina Fors transforms Kunstraum Niederoesterreich into the Oracle of Delphi. Like the ancient custom in the temple of prophecy, each day visitors can encounter the priestess Pythia, who shall now be summoned by Fors. As legend goes, Pythia announces her prophecies in a drunken state of ecstasy, giving her advice in unpredictable forms of expression and with ample space for interpretation. With a penchant for the absurd and untamed, Fors articulates a contemporary commentary on the post-truth era in this award-winning project: in a world where claims to truth are predicated on emotions and convictions, the artist urges her audience to resort to their own critical faculties. She encourages them to question themselves and each other, even though or precisely because they themselves – and art – do not always have straightforward answers. Wielding methods such as ventriloquism, various vocal techniques, spontaneity, and interaction, Fors’s Answer me, Pythia represents an uncompromising commitment to the live moment and the immediate encounters performative art enables."

This year, the Kunstraum Niederoesterreich is once again awarding the prize together with a renowned international partner institution: the Studio Voltaire in London. Studio Voltaire is one of the UK’s leading not-for-profit arts and education organisations. Championing emerging and under-represented artists, it commissions and produces exhibitions, collaborative projects, artist development programs, live events and offsite projects.

In addition to the prize money, Stina Fors may look forward to a residency at Studio Voltaire which offers a wide range of opportunities for creative exchange and professional development.

Fors' performance project Answer Me, Pythia extends over the entire duration of this year's H13 program, from Sat, 22.11. to Sat, 06.12.2025. The prelude will be a lecture performance, which Fors will present at the festive H13 award ceremony on Fri, 21.11.2025 at Kunstraum Niederoesterreich.

>> Find the H13 open call for 2025 HERE.