Mia Akrap in conversation with Leopold Rupnik

Join us on Tuesday, September 1st, at 7 PM, for a conversation between artist Mia Akrap and art historian Leopold Rupnik, focusing on Akrap’s work and the concepts behind the current exhibition “Stronger Than Bone”.

Trotoar Talks is a series of discussions with artists, curators, and their guests related to exhibitions from the Trotoar program. Recordings of previous talks are available for listening on our SoundCloud channel.

ABOUT THE PANELISTS

Mia Akrap (Požega, 1995) graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in 2020, where she is currently undertaking her postgraduate studies. She works primarily in the fields of painting and ceramics, and through her practice she explores questions of identity, personal and collective experience, transformation, and transgenerational legacies. Her work focuses on the processes of memory, the build-up of layers of experience and archetypal models, in which materiality and form become bearers of symbolic and affective meanings.

She has held solo exhibitions at the Kazamat Gallery (Osijek, 2023), Poola Gallery (Pula, 2023), the B. Dešković Art Gallery (Bol, 2023), the Karas Gallery (Zagreb, 2022) and the Šira Gallery (Zagreb, 2020), among others. She has participated in numerous group exhibitions, including Od Y do Z – Gradilište nove generacije (National Museum of Modern Art, 2025), the 37th Youth Salon (Archaeological Museum, 2024), the Biennale of Painting (2023, 2025), the 36th Youth Salon (2022), the 6th Biennale of Painting (2021), Matrice: botanika (SC Gallery, Zagreb, 2021), the 16th Erste Fragments exhibition (2020), Venientes (the 35th Youth Salon, 2020), and the 8th Watercolour Triennale(Art Gallery of the City of Slavonski Brod, 2019).

She was awarded the Canvas Gallery Prize at the 7th Biennale of Painting (2023), the “Collector to Artist Award” at the 36th Youth Salon (2022), and the People’s Choice Award at the 16th Erste Fragments competition (2020). She has been on several art residencyprograms in France, Germany, and Lithuania, and as part of her Erasmus+ placement she spent time in Germany. Her works are part of the collection of the National Museum of Modern Art in Zagreb, and private collections. She lives and works in Zagreb.

Leopold Rupnik holds a degree in Art History and German Studies from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb. During his studies, he received two Rector’s Awards: the first for the exhibition Deutsch-römisches Brevier: 500 godina – 400 primjeraka – 1 obljetnica (2019), and the second for his editorial work on Kulturflux, a web platform dedicated to visual art and culture (2020). He completed the Women’s Studies programme at the Centre for Women’s Studies in Zagreb in 2016 and has since continued his professional development through courses at Node Center for Curatorial Studies in Berlin (2023), the Institute for Postnatural Studies in Madrid (2023), and the Zürich University of the Arts (2024). Since 2023, he has worked at LEXART Depot as a curatorial assistant, contributing to the exhibition programme, editorial content for gallery publications, international collaborations, and the gallery’s internal organisation. He has been a regular contributor to the online arts magazine Vizkultura since 2022. Since 2026, he has also collaborated with Događanja Gallery, writing exhibition reviews and commentaries for its social media platforms. His critical and scholarly writing has been published by Kulturpunkt, Contemporary Croatian Photography, Vox Feminae, and Krilo, as well as in journals including Treća (Centre for Women’s Studies, Zagreb) and Narodna umjetnost (Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research, Zagreb). He has also collaborated with the radio programme Triptih, where several of his original texts were broadcast. He has contributed chapters to several edited volumes, including Ecofeminism: Between Green and Women’s Studies (Durieux, 2020) and Cat Anthology: From Bastet to Catwoman (Jesenski i Turk, 2022). He has presented his research at numerous conferences, including Micropolitics 2023: Reading Art (History) through Feminist Perspectives (BLOK, Zagreb, 2023). He has also collaborated with CEKAO Gallery (2019–2021) and f8 Gallery (2019), writing introductory essays for exhibitions. He is a member of the Croatian section of AICA, the Study Section of the Croatian Association of Artists of Applied Arts, and the Croatian Society of Film Critics.