Karlo Hmeljak

Karlo Hmeljak, (1983), sailor and poet. Hmeljak has published three poetry books: Dve leti pod ničlo / Two Years below Zero (2007), Krčrk (2012), Zategadalj (2022). And the chepbook Ljubavne (2012). He gained the Veronika prize for the best poetry book in Slovenian in 2013. Excerpts of his work has been translated in several european languages and published in literary magazines. Ljubavne was published in 2015 in Serbian. He was a member of the editorial board of Idiot magazine. Since 2019 he has been involved with the art collective Stran22 on several projects. Adapting texts and working on the dramaturgy for the theater plays Podgane / Rats (2019) and Samost / Solitude by the theater director Marko Čeh. Stran22 presented few of their light installations at Svetlobna gverila / Light Guerrilla Festival (2019-2022) in Ljubljana and staged a solo exhibition in Vžigalica / Match Gallery in Ljubljana in 2021. He is a member of the organization team of the IZIS Festival, produced by PiNA in Koper, Slovenia. Matej Bonin, a contemporary composer, used his texts for his piece Gymnastics of non/sense I in 2015, followed in 2022 with the second part of the project, with new texts written by Hmeljak for the composition for six percussionists and voice, performed several times lived and published on CD and vynil by Zavod Sploh.