Rog Expo 2026: More Than Us

THEME, PURPOSE OF THE EXHIBITION AND ELIGIBILITY

This year’s Rog Expo 2026 exhibition, opening on 25 November, is titled “More Than Us” and focuses on projects that place nature and all forms of living beings at the center of exploration. User-centered design has long shaped the work of designers and engineers; however, despite good intentions, this approach has remained narrowly focused on humans — and for a long time, primarily on men. Meanwhile, billions of animals, plants, and ecosystems that sustain our lives have been treated as peripheral, as resources to be used without deeper reflection. This quiet distance has shaped entire industries, normalized exploitation, and obscured how deeply interconnected we truly are.

The open call for product submissions is available to all members of Center Rog who create in its production labs. Through this exhibition, we aim to:

• Present products and prototypes developed in the production labs of Center Rog between 2024 and 2026 by studio users, participants of the Young Rog programme, independent lab users, mentors, resident creators, and those created within workshops, courses, and partnership programmes.
• Showcase contemporary designed products that respond to the theme of Rog Expo 2026.
• Demonstrate how innovative approaches can shape sustainable and socially responsible products that address pressing social and design challenges.

We are looking for products that relate to the following thematic starting points:

• More-than-human users – How can we design for beings? How can we recognize and consider the needs, rhythms, and rights of animals, plants, microorganisms, and ecosystems? What worlds can we imagine if humans are no longer at the center? What new rituals, economies, and forms of living can design propose?
• Symbiosis and interdependence – How can design establish relationships between species, technologies, and environments based on cooperation rather than dominance? How can design reshape our relationship to exploitation, ownership, and control over other beings and natural systems?
• Material as co-actor – How can we understand materials and environments as active collaborators in the design process? How do their properties, limitations, and transformations co-create the final outcome?
• Design for regeneration – How can projects go beyond sustainability and actively contribute to the restoration of ecosystems, communities, or material cycles? How can design become a practice of care — not only for people, but also for soil, water, air, materials, and invisible organisms?
• Intelligence beyond the human – How can biological, collective, or artificial intelligence be included as partners in the process? What does it mean to share authorship with algorithms, natural processes, or other systems?
• Hybrid bodies and extended sensoriality – How can design explore the intertwining of humans, technology, and other species? How can human perception be expanded through materials, devices, or organisms?
• Communities beyond the human – How can we think of community as a network of relationships between people, animals, plants, materials, and infrastructure?

Selection Criteria

1.Functionality, usability, and production origin:

• The product must be a functional object or a refined prototype.
• The product must have been produced in the production workshops of Center Rog; the use of multiple labs is considered an advantage.
• The product may still be in development at the time of submission but must be completed no later than 16 September 2026. The final decision on inclusion will be based on the finished product.

2.Connection to the exhibition theme, aesthetics, innovation, and creativity:

• The product presents an innovative response to the theme “More Than Us.”
• High-quality craftsmanship with precision, attention to detail, and refined finishing.
• Commitment to sustainable production practices and the use of recycled, natural, locally sourced, or traceable materials.
• The product is designed for durability and enables recycling, repair, reuse, or decomposition.

Selection Process

The selection of products will be carried out by the exhibition curators, Alja Fir and Anja Radović, based on the criteria above and curatorial judgment. In addition to meeting the criteria, the authorial or curatorial approach will also be taken into account.

Compensation for Exhibitors

• For project studio users, participants of the Young Rog programme, and residents, no exhibition fee is предусмотрена.
• Independent lab users and mentors of Center Rog whose products are selected for the exhibition will receive compensation in the form of a one-year Center Rog user package valued at €380.

Timeline

Publication of programme guidelines and application form: 26 February 2026

Online info session (Zoom) – presentation of the theme: Monday, 26 May 2025, 10:00 (Zoom link)

Deadline for proposal submission: 21 September 2026 (inclusive)

Notification of selected products: no later than 2 October 2026

Deadline for product delivery: 16 October 2026

Exhibition opening: 25 November 2026 at 19:00

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: alja.fir@center-rog.si