Huggy Bears Artists 2025

Els van Houtert (she/her, NL, 1990) is a Vienna-based, multidisciplinary performance artist and artistic researcher working with embodied experience, ceramics, drawing, installation, and writing. She holds an MA in Art & Science from the University of Applied Arts Vienna (2024) and has an academic background in anthropology and religious studies.

Her practice centers on bodily experience and everyday material encounters. Through a micro-phenomenological lens, Els explores the subtle, sensory relationships between herself as well as others, and the material world around her/them. She treats the body as a primary site of exploration and creates performative works and collaborations that are often interactive and that invite for collective ritualization and reflection.

Daria Nosik (she/her) is a performer, director, and actress based in Vienna since 2017. She graduated from the Mikhail Shchepkin Theatre School (2007) and graduated in directing from the School & Studio of Modern Variety, Film and Television (2009). Since 2010, she has directed award-winning short films presented at Russian and international festivals. She has played more than 80 theatre and film roles, including a leading part in the Austrian feature film Kaviar (directed by Elena Tikhonova, 2019). She has collaborated, among others, with Oleg Soulimenko at brut Wien and Tanzquartier Wien, and has been running Nosik Family Lab – Actors Training and Coaching since 2019.

Sunggu Hong (he/him), born in Seoul, is a Vienna-based artist working in visual and performing arts. He studied visual Arts in South Korea and Performative Art at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. “Relation” is a central concept in his practice, through which he asks: “How should/could we live together within interdependent, entangled, and complex relationships?” and “Why do alienation and hatred emerge within these complex relationships?” His current interest lies in the relationship between Human and Non-Human. Through focusing on their interdependence and entanglement, he seeks to deconstruct the anthropocentric perspective and reconsider our complex relationships, the happenings within them and our coexistence. Main question that runs through this whole working process is: “How are we raised by each other?”

Katarína Krupičková is a dancer from Slovakia, currently living in Austria where they studied at the Anton Bruckner University in Linz. During their experience as a dancer, they created works with artist such as Hannes Langolf, Johannes Wieland, Ryan Mason, Stella Zannou, Jianan Qu and many more. Since living in Austria, they had a chance to perform in various festivals such as The non-fungible body? Festival curated by Freda Fiala and River Lin in OK – Centre for Contemporary Arts Austria Linz (2022) and Camping Asia Festival in Taipei (2023). In their own works, they connect spoken word, movement and various media to create a collaborative performance – a fusion of multiple disciplines and artforms.