Pretraga

Our cases - our spaces

Foundation “Jelena Santic” will conduct a research on “The Pioneer City” in Kosutnjak, Belgrade as a dissonant heritage with many memory layers. This location, known as an air spa since 19th century, during the WW II was headquarters for German army and it became Pioneer City during volunteer action after 1947. Pioneer town was built on a small area (8,40 ha). By the end 1962, it was expanded to 40,00 ha. Since its creation, there were promising plans for its construction and development, which is never fully realized. After the Yugoslavia break, it accommodated refugees and unfortunately some displaced families still live there. Currently this space belongs to the City of Belgrade, is extremely rusty and its facilities are given in a sublease of public and private companies. City of Belgrade has initiated the restoration work in this area, but only for sporting activities. We would like to envisage it as a possible model of a socio-cultural space that can be designed not only in Serbia. The Pioneer City is also an urbanistic valuable model, not only in Serbia, ex Yugoslavia, but also in former communist countries. At the same time the content of the space (spaces for artistic development of youth…) is extremely relevant for the development of innovative socio- cultural space that FJS will envisage. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Lokomotiva wants to develop a new contemporary performing arts and culture space, as a new paradigm of a public space for art and culture, in an old cinema building (kino Kultura), space related to the cultural memory from Socialistic Yugoslavia, being an urban symbol of the city that was privatized with the law of de-nationalization. Hasn’t been considered by establishment to be restored by returning it in public hands as site of a cultural memory instead of investing in new monuments and building (as part Skopje 2014). Our idea is to develop the model on which we will base general advocacy for re-claiming the public spaces with socio-cultural memory instead of building new spaces. CSO Slobodne veze/Loose Associations’ initiated project “Motel Trogir” in 2013, space which marks one of the neuralgic points of the town since for many years it has been standing devastated due to unresolved ownership issues (due to the non-transparent privatization of what once was ´societal property´, in the beginning of the 1990s). 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Slobodne veze/Loose Associations platform since 2013 started the campaign for the formal protection of the Motel Trogir and result led to the inscription of the Motel in the Registry of Protected Cultural Goods by the Ministry of Culture of Croatia, at the end of 2013. Since then CSO Slobodne veze has performed various cultural activities with a general aim to reaffirm and critically re-think the public space, its usage and its contribution to the better quality of life of the community. Through this project we would like to share our experience with the partners, develop a sustainable model or an artistic residential and community space.

Our story

The project DISSONANT (CO) SPACES represents joint effort of three regional CSO's: Lokomotiva from Skopje, Foundation Jelena Santic from Belgrade and Loose Associations from Croatia.

It aims to contribute to the promotion of innovative solutions and possibilities for reforming privatised, derelict, abandoned or “in between” public spaces created within different socio-political and spatial paradigm, by exploring both what those spaces can denote today and their contribution to inclusion and civic participation through engaged arts and culture.

In Croatia these spaces are disputed and derelict, as well as in Macedonia while new are built to mark new “nation brand” identity, while in Serbia they have been used for political promotion. These spaces are the relics of the political economy of ex Yugoslavia, with social ideal as their generative core, no matter how naïve or immature those ideas can seem retrospectively. They are often the keepers of the collective memory, which has been radically reshaped in all three countries today: either by reinterpretation or erasure. This project is seen as a possibility to question and explore current processes of history and space- making and preserving some of the (past) common values and memory through developing new spaces for culture that will promote democracy, openness, solidarity and inclusion.

Our aspirations are towards reactivating and creating new spaces by producing effective cultural managerial models and socio-cultural and creative content, while preserving memory layers and developing discursive field in which they will be reflected. Through envisaged workshop, conference, art residences, study trip, artistic production, publication and promotional activities we would like to articulate following issues: what dissonant heritage means for broader public; which of the values of that heritage could be recognized as useful and important in larger socio-cultural and political context and how those spaces could be re-formed through cultural and artistic initiatives; research new/improved models of cultural institutions and managerial approaches; to introduce participation and usership as principles of deliberative democracy in management and their implementation in the (re) created public spaces and institutions in culture; promote democracy, openness, solidarity, participation, activism and inclusion as institutional values and principles related to the artistic content.

The project Dissonant Co(Spaces) is funded by Balkan Arts and Culture Fund BAC. BAC is supported by the Swiss Government through the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the European Cultural Foundation (ECF). Also, project is supported by Ministry of culture and information of Republic of Serbia.