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March 29, 2023
Some Call Us Balkans – Exhibition
Pristina, Kosovo, 1-14 April 2023
“Some Call Us Balkans” hosts eight contemporary young artists in the city of Pristina, Kosovo, whose artworks explore the Balkans, its myths and misconceptions, reclaiming the space beyond stereotypes, envisioning new ecologies, modes of inhabiting and coming together on a common ground.
Some Call Us Balkans (SCUB) forms a transdisciplinary research and community that aims to traverse, contest, investigate and create different notions of the Balkan as a tangible and intangible territory beyond stereotypical representation and narratives.
Τhe artistic practices and reflections are triggers to co-create and exchange knowledge while crossing different spaces, communities and social claims under the vision of an open-traveling practice across the Balkans and the implementation of participatory art-based research.
– How can we challenge the notion of “Balkans” as “European Other” and bring our reflection to the public space and discourse?
– How do we speak of the “Balkans”? Why do we speak of the “Balkans”?
– Are there other forms and ecologies of living and representing the territory?
SCUB embraces art-based research and a socially-engaged community that mobilizes moments of collective production of knowledge, research, and multivocal representations of the Balkans. Myths and misconceptions of the ‘Balkans’ produce biases which shape the way we talk, feel and think about it both on the inside and the outside of the region. With the main objective to challenge notions of the “Balkans” as the “European Other”, SCUB brings together a multidisciplinary partnership with artists, researchers and non-governmental organisations, cultural centers, community centers and an Art Biennale.
Participating artists:
Mary Marinopoulou [Greece], Diona Kusari [Kosovo], Sezer Salihi [North Macedonia], Jelena Gajinović [Serbia], Ale Riletti [Italy], Lori Lako [Albania], Lea Blau [BiH], Jelena (Jelly) Luise [Germany]
(from top left to bottom right): Jelena Luise, Ale Riletti, Lea Blau, Lori Lako,
Jelena Gajinović, Diona Kusari, Mary Marinopoulou and Sezer Salihi
Official opening
Saturday, 1 April 2023
At TERMOKISS, 16:00-20:00
At RILINDJA, 18:00-21:00
Venues:
Termokiss, Ilaz Kodra, Prishtina 10000, Kosovo
Rilindja, Dritan Hoxha, Prishtina 10000, Kosovo
Presented by Termokiss
Organisation team: Miranda Mehmeti, Era Qena, Ismail Myrseli, Shpat Shkodra, Toska Salihu
Curatorial committee: Mariana Ziku, Hana Milenkovska, Miodrag Kuč, Viola Gaba, Vesna Malesevic, Miranda Mehmeti, Alban Nimani, Jovana Jankov, Ale Rilletti
Production team: Vildane Maliqi, Dion Zeqiri
Event mediator: Viola Gaba
Graphic design: Biennale of Western Balkans bowb.org
More information
SCUB is a Creative Europe Cultural Cooperation Project (2021-2023) funded by the European Union. SCUB community includes ICSE&Co., UNSA Geto, Tačka Komunikacije, Biennale of Western Balkans, Sociopatch – platform for civic engagement, Tulla Culture Center, ZK/U Berlin, Termokiss Social Center, and The Ground Tour project.
Website: https://somecallusbalkans.org/
Pristina exhibition: https://somecallusbalkans.org/pristina-exhibition
Online press release: https://somecallusbalkans.org/press-kit/
Online press kit with visuals (publish under open licence CC BY-SA 4.0): https://drive.google.com/scub-visuals
For project enquiries: info@somecallsusbalkans.org
For media enquiries: Katerina Zachou, Biennale of Western Balkans, katerina.zachou@bowb.org
The exhibition has been co-funded by the European Union and is part of the project Some Call Us Balkans (No. 623158-CREA-1-2020-1-IT-CULT-COOP-WB)
May 2, 2022
ASSEMBLING BL(KN) – Residency
DKC Incel, Banja Luka, 02/05/2022 – 29/05/2022
SCUB – Some Call us Balkans finally lands in Banja Luka. SCUB is an International Cultural Cooperation project funded by Creative Europe, the Executive Agency of the European Commission for Culture and Education in 2020.
The project provides a transdisciplinary programme that embraces art-based inquiry, and a socially-engaged community that mobilizes moments of collective production of knowledge, research, and multivocal representations of the Balkans. With the main objective to challenge myths and misconceptions regarding the “Balkans” as the “European Other”, SCUB brings together a multidisciplinary partnership among non-governmental organizations, cultural centers, community centers and an Art Biennale.
The partnership covers a large geographical area, starting from BiH with Unsa Geto; Italy with ICSE & Co. as project leader, following with partner countries such as Greece with the Biennale of Western Balkans; Albania with Tulla – Culture Center; Kosovo, with Termokiss; Serbia with Tačka komunikacije; North Macedonia with Sociopatch Platform for civic engagement through artistic and cultural practices; and Germany with ZK/U – Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik of Berlin.
After the competition of key project activities, including an artistic research ‘Balkan’ Myths and Misconception and one month capacity-building programme specifically tailored to strengthen partners organizational capacities in Berlin, SCUB finally enters the scene in Banja Luka.
DKC Incel Cultural Center will host 8 selected artist-travelers coming from Italy, Germany, Albania, Greece, Serbia, North Macedonia, Kosovo and Bosnia in a one-month artistic residency.
The Artist Residency ASSEMBLING BL(KN) 02.05 – 29.05. 2022, has the main objective to create a collective of Artist-Travelers and build common practices of public and participatory art in the urban and traveling Balkan context. The residency is choreographed as a process of co-creation, through moments of collective and individual reflection on how to challenge univocal narratives of East and West, based on inside and outside boundaries discursive practice of “otherness”.
The collective of 8 artist-travelers, supported by a set of international and local experts, and communities, will experience site-visits, team-building activities, public events in the co-creation of individual and collective artistic practices.
The artistic process in Banja Luka will be the preparatory phase for the Ground Tour Journey, a one-month travel throughout the Balkans, where the artists will have the chance to meet people and communities along the way and to engage them in public art participatory intervention and format.
The residency has been prepared in collaboration with the SCUB partnership and supported by several local and international actors.
Each week during the residency we will provide a set of public events such as performative walks, film screenings, workshops, performative lectures, talks, exhibitions, concerts and community-based interventions in the urban spaces and communities of Banja Luka.
March 3, 2021
Creative Europe project Some Call Us Balkans announces the selected Artist – Travellers
The Cultural Cooperation project Some Call Us Balkans (SCUB) is a Creative Europe-funded transdisciplinary programme, an art-based inquiry, and a community that explores and mobilizes moments of collective production of knowledge, imagination, research, and multivocal representations that challenge myths and misconc
eptions regarding the “Balkans” as the “European Other”. It is organised by a transnational collective of curators and partners based in Serbia, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Greece, Italy, and Germany.
Based on the artistic research built throughout the project and the following open call “Collective Terms of Action” for 8 artist-travellers, SCUB is delighted to announce the selected artists coming from all partner countries and multidisciplinary backgrounds. The programme would like to warmly welcome Jelena Luise, Ale Riletti, Lea Blau, Lori Lako, Jelena Gajinović, Diona Kusari, Mary Marinopoulou and Sezer Salihi.
The artists will be collectively taking part in the one-month residency in Banja Luka to work together and envision the Mobile Forum, in order to later begin their Ground Tour Journey in the “Balkans” and implement their artistic interventions in the city of each partner. Finally, in early 2023, they will all be presenting an individual work in the final exhibition of the project in Prishtina.
SCUB community includes ICSE&Co., UNSA Geto, Tačka Komunikacije, Biennale of Western Balkans, Sociopatch – platform for civic engagement, Tulla Culture Center, ZK/U Berlin, Termokiss Social Center, and The Ground Tour project, collaborating with the support of the European Union (Creative Europe, Western Balkans 2021-23).
More information
Website: https://somecallusbalkans.org/
Project enquiries: info@somecallsusbalkans.org
29 November 2021
Creative Europe project Some Call Us Balkans announces open calls for Artist – Travellers
The Cultural Cooperation project Some Call Us Balkans (SCUB) is a Creative Europe-funded transdisciplinary programme, an art-based inquiry, and a community that explores and mobilizes moments of collective production of knowledge, imagination, research, and multivocal representations that challenge myths and misconceptions regarding the “Balkans” as the “European Other”. It is organised by a transnational collective of curators and partners based in Serbia, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, Greece, Italy, and Germany.
On the occasion of its upcoming programme, which is based on the artistic research built throughout the project, the SCUB community is looking for 8 emerging artist-travellers from the participating countries, who will form a collective and work jointly, committing to the programme’s timeline and activation moments. SCUB provides a unique platform for the participating artists, including a three-step co-creation and mutual learning process, activated at different locations spanning the wider Balkan region.
After the selection process and the announcement of the participating artists in February 2022, the programme will unfold starting with a one-month residency in Banja Luka (BIH) at DKC Incel Cultural Center in May 2022, where the artists along with a set of experts, curators, and local communities will co-create and develop individual and collective artistic works as part of the Mobile Forum and the dramaturgy of a Ground Tour Journey.
Following the residency, the artists will stage the Mobile Forum in public spaces at partners’ selected sites, engaging local communities and putting into action the Ground Tour Journey in a participatory format during 1 month between September and October 2022. This is imagined as a travelling theatre piece with the artist-travellers, the localities, the communities and the local actors involved as protagonists. The Mobile Forum is conceived as a mobile public art installation where artistic practices and tools are used as triggers for cross-border dialogue, exchange and learning while travelling across geographies and peoples. Conceived as an open assembly space where new sociocultural imagination can be conceived, the Mobile Forum aims to document and make grassroot claims visible while connecting local cultural practitioners and communities of practice with artists and the hosting partners and communities.
The Journey will end at the Biennale of Western Balkans (BoWB), Ioannina (Greece) in October 2022. In the aftermath in between November 2022 and March 2023, the artists will have a mentored, remote time to produce retrospectively their individual work to be presented at the final exhibition of the project in Prishtina at the partner space of Termokiss Community Center.
The purpose of this project is to initiate a series of activities resulting in the co-creation of a mobile forum, opening spaces of encounter and imagination that transgress borders and nationalisms in the Balkans, throughout Europe and beyond.
SCUB community includes ICSE&Co., UNSA Geto, Tačka Komunikacije, Biennale of Western Balkans, Sociopatch – platform for civic engagement, Tulla Culture Center, ZK/U Berlin, Termokiss Social Center, and The Ground Tour project, collaborating with the support of the European Union (Creative Europe, Western Balkans 2021-23).
More information
Website: https://somecallusbalkans.org/
Open Calls: https://somecallusbalkans.org/scub-activities/open-call/
Project enquiries: info@somecallsusbalkans.org
For media enquiries
Christina Ioannou, CCIcomms