Alek Niemiro receives the Austrian Art Alumni Award 2025
Alek Niemiro, a graduate of the Thomas Bernhard Institute's directing programme, has been awarded the new Austrian Art Alumni Award for his project ‘Last Hour of Resistance’. Starting this year, the award will be presented annually by the BMFWF and Austrian art universities to selected outstanding graduates, and comes with a twelve-month scholarship worth €24,000. Congratulations!
On 13 October 2025, six outstanding graduates of Austrian art universities were honoured with the first-ever A4 – Austrian Art Alumni Award. This joint initiative by public art universities and the Federal Ministry for Women, Science and Research (BMFWF) supports artistic careers at the threshold between study and professional practice.
Alek Niemiro, a graduate of the Thomas Bernhard Institute for Acting, Directing and Applied Theatre at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg, was honoured for his directing project Last Hour of Resistance, which deals with social upheaval, collective trauma and the question of individual responsibility in times of turmoil.
The innovative scholarship is a first for Austria: for the first time, six art graduates are receiving a one-year support programme worth €24,000 to realise their own artistic projects at home and abroad. The aim is to facilitate the transition from university education to independent artistic practice and to create sustainable prospects.
At the award ceremony at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, Federal Minister Eva-Maria Holzleitner emphasised the social significance of artistic work: ‘The scholarship strengthens young artists and gives them the opportunity to freely develop their creativity. [...] Art and culture are central pillars of our coexistence and make a significant contribution to an open, democratic society.’
The scholarship recipients were selected by a jury consisting of representatives from the six art universities, the BMFWF and external experts. Janet Ritterman served as an external juror for the Mozarteum University Salzburg, focusing on performing arts. Rector Elisabeth Gutjahr and Christoph Lepschy were also present at the award ceremony.
The winners of the first A4 – Austrian Art Alumni Awards 2025 are:
- Anna Arkushyna for ‘Unnatural Selection for Ensemble and Electronics’
- Anahita Asadifar for ‘Tracking our way through time’
- Paul Takuda Chiwona for ‘Underwaterbodies’
- Elena Kristofor for an investigation of the inscriptions of war in Ukrainian natural landscapes / liminal spaces of destruction and memory
- Marlene Muthspiel for ‘frei.sein (Ensemble nilena)’
- Alek Niemiro for ‘Last Hour of Resistance’