The Irwin group represents a part of the alternative Slovene youth cultural organisation named Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK). Since 1983 they have presented themselves as a group of artists without individual identities and their work is of a collective nature. The names of the Irwin group members appeared for the first time in the late 1980's (in the catalogue for their Paris exhibition in 1988): Dušan Mandić, born in 1954 in Ljubljana, Miran Mohar born in 1958 in Novo Mesto, Andrej Savski born in 1961 in Ljubljana, Roman Uranjek born in 1961 in Trbovlje and Borut Vogelnik born in 1958 (often listed as 1959) in Kranj. They were all students of the Ljubljana Academy of Fine Art. In their programme for 1984, the group wrote that "the fundamental aim in the work of the Irwin group...is the affirmation of Slovene art through a spectacle-charted presentation", this has been implemented through the retro principle, with the intensification of eclecticism and affirmation of nationality and national culture. The group and their work first attracted attention and critical response across Yugoslavia and abroad, and only later in Slovenia. Among other awards, the group recieved the Zlata Ptica award (Golden Bird) in 1986. In 1993, the Moderna galerija in Ljubljana invited the Irwin group to exhibit their NSK State project in the Slovene Pavillion at the Venice Biennial alongside the work of Marjetica Potrč. The group has been exhibiting in the USA (since 1989) in Russia (since 1992), they founded the NSK Embassies also in some Eruopean cities. They were included in major exhibitions of Eastern art at the West, like After the Wall (Stockholm etc. 1999/2000), L'autre moitié de l'Europe (Paris, Galerie national du Jeu de Paume, 2000) and in some international projects like Manifesa '96 (Rotterdam), 5. Istanbul Biennial 1997. Their works can be found in several international collections of contemporary art.