SCUBCommunity is an open community of practitioners in art and culture working and travelling in between disciplines, communities and contexts across the Balkans.
Organisations
ICSE&Co.
ICSE&Co. is a non-profit organization linked to the Political Sciences Department of the University of Florence. Since 2010 we have worked in three main sectors:
✓ Sustainable development : promoting a sustainable social development, especially in the Mediterranean area, mainly through the lifelong learning tools. We currently run and manage stimulating projects that produce a change in society and in the participants;
✓ Young people and intercultural issues: analyzing and advocate for intercultural activities and projects to enhance the opportunity of development in civil societies in Europe;
✓ Institutional social project development: through social research focusing on the constantly changing characteristics of society, we offer support and project management, and implementation to municipalities, regions and national and international entities.
Our network includes a wide range of actors, from the single participant to local and international associations, public authorities, universities and ministerial agencies.
Our vision is to better understand the global involvement of single pieces of the whole puzzle, interacting and working together in a wealthier way.
She holds a Master Degree in “International Relations and European Studies” with a focus on human rights and gender-equality issues.
She has worked for several years in the educational and social sector. Currently she works as a project manager, developing and administering European projects dealing with several topics such as capacity building, human rights and international cooperation.
Aferdite Shani is an experienced social researcher focused on policy papers on integration processes and foreing relations; she has been working with different european funds and public financing with Ministries, Regions and associations as project manager expert and cooperation projects development. Currently, she is consultant for migration and diaspora with IOM Albania. The main domain of her expertise is intelligence policy relationship management and association manager and network promoter. Locally she has been engaged in cross-cultural approach promoter and social entrepreneurship specialist for migrants.
The Ground Tour
The Ground Tour is a project that promotes a proactive way of travelling by critically exploring various places and their social discourses. We are a transdisciplinary collective from different parts of Europe with the desire to connect those who want to reflect and react upon the current conditions of global mobility, and propel new collaborations with them. Through artistic strategies and applied research methods, we actively challenge constructed narratives that tell us we should be divided. Our ethos is to travel in order to create spaces of encounter that transgress the borders of nationalism, where diverse interactions between people and their environments can envision other forms of belonging. Upon these transnational stages we find ways for coexistence and collective knowledge production. It is here where notions of identity have a place for discussion and contestation; where differences can collide and produce alternative narrations of realities.
Enrico Tomassini is a transdisciplinary researcher and curator, with a background in Architecture, Social Design and Cinema. Social Engaged Art Practice is at the core of his work. He has engaged, curated and conceptualized complex collaborative and participatory artistic open-processes, where art springs out of an interdisciplinary approach and theory and practice mingles to give shape to applied artistic research methodologies/formats, narrative-performative storytelling interventions, interactive exhibitions and public art installations, in the form of hybrid and multilayered outputs and outcomes.
Peter Lorenz works as a freelance stage director in theatre, opera and contemporary performance. He holds a degree in Theatre Studies from the University of Glasgow and has been working as an assistant and revival director for large scale opera productions e.g. with Scottish Opera, Vancouver Opera and the Bayreuth Festival. His own performances were shown mainly in the UK, the Balkans, Canada and the German-speaking area, ranging from experimental musical theatre and solo choreographies to interactive installations. Peter cofounded the Street Arts Festival in Mostar in 2012 and the international performance collective The Doing Group in Glasgow in 2015.
Milly Reid is a freelance artist and designer based in Berlin. Following a background in arts, architecture, and social design, her works evolve through poetic narration while exploring the relationship between belonging and environment. Having lived a little bit in a lot of places, she is inspired by processes of adaptation, growth, and ways of being on the move.
ZK/U / KUNSTrePUBLIK
ZK/U is a residency and platform for creative and urban experimentation.Through its glocal program, ZK/U explores and critiques existing knowledge and practices in urban agglomerations as a springboard to individual and community self-empowerment. With insights and expertise gained over years of collective work as an artist-run initiative in Berlin and beyond, ZK/U fosters the expansion of resilient and inclusionary networks that can rise to the challenges of city life in the 21st century.
ZK/U seeks to develop projects, co-produce knowledge and share values created through exchanges. ZK/U does not offer a fixed set of ideas and principles for its fellows. Rather, individual projects and needs shape what could be described as a continuous formation.
Miodrag Kuč is an interdisciplinary artist and urban theorist trained as an architect / urban planner in various cultural settings. His work explores the role of ephemeral structures in uncertain urban conditions and spatial appropriations of marginal social groups. He is the founder of the studio ParaArtFormations, which moves at the intersection of urban studies, performative-planning, artistic interventions and micro politics. He works as researcher and leads various projects at ZK/U (Centre for Art and Urbanistics) Berlin, exploring new ways of knowledge production through the lens of critical urban pedagogy.
Matthias Einhoff is an artist and co-director of ZK/U (Center for Arts and Urbanistics). As a member of the artist collective Superschool, he developed various experimental performances aiming at collective knowledge production, such as Congress of Half-Knowledge, Gesichtsbuch and Superschool TV. As a founding member of the artist collective KUNSTrePUBLIK, he has been working as an artist, curator, researcher and activist.
Dennis Lindenau is certified project and funding manager with more than 5 years experience in handling larger European cooperation projects funded by Creative Europe, Horizon 2020, Urban Innovative Actions (UIA) and Erasmusplus. Furthermore he is specialised in handling national funding programmes, co-financing funds and Public Funding Laws. He is currently working as funding and financial manager for KUNSTrePUBLIK e.V./ZKU Berlin.
Biennale of Western Balkans
The Biennale of Western Balkans (BoWB) promotes intangible and natural heritage through art, technology, and open knowledge, with the vision to inspire people experiencing tradition anew. BoWB is a biennial festival and year-round project that was initiated in 2018 in Ioannina, Region of Epirus, Northwestern Greece. BoWB’s mission is to present interdisciplinary art and research that engage intangible cultural practices in transformative, collective, and educative ways, advocating for open knowledge, open-source technologies, and the commons. BoWB aims to develop inclusive participation in a wide range of social groups and foster a network of transnational and intersectional mobility in Greece and the Western Balkans. We envision a boundary-spanning approach to intangible heritage that brings together past and contemporary cultural practices, encouraging collective action, art creation, and well-being. BoWB is an initiative of the History of Art Laboratory of the School of Fine Arts at the University of Ioannina.
Christos Dermentzopoulos is a Professor of Anthropology of Art, Cultural Studies and Politics and History/Theory of Cinema in the Department of Fine Arts and Sciences of Art of the School of Fine Arts of the University of Ioannina.
Mariana Ziku is a researcher specialising in digital cultural heritage with focus on intangible heritage and open data. She is the co-founder of the Biennale of Western Balkans and a PhD candidate and research associate at the Intelligent Interaction RG, Dept. of Cultural Technology and Communication, University of the Aegean. She works in research and cultural projects at the intersection of art, technology and open science.
Elli Leventaki is an art historian, a curator, and a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Theory and History of Art in the Athens School of Fine Arts. She is currently a curator at the Biennale of Western Balkans, while simultaneously collaborating with independent art programs and art spaces as a freelance curator.
SocioPatch
SocioPatch – Platform for civic engagement through artistic and cultural practices (est. 2017) is a group of artists working in Skopje and the Balkan region. It is organized as a platform whose primary goal is to foster artistic and cultural practices that address topics of social relevance, in particular ones dealing with social engagement, art-based research and cultural management. The team includes young artists from the performing arts, social design, visual arts as well as young professionals in the fields of software development, political science and project management. SocioPatch is challenged by the established norms and ethics imposed by present societal structures, and is invested in transgressing its limits through artistic disciplines. By focusing on, curating and developing artistic and cultural practices SocioPatch will aim to fulfil its goals of transparency, accountability and persistence in the current and future social landscapes.
Klelija Zhivkovikj is a transdisciplinary designer, based in Skopje. She is engaged with two organizations she co-founded: Sociopatch, a platform for civic engagement through artistic and cultural practices, and DGTL12, a collaborative, design-based inquiry into digital transformation through pedagogy, performance, and technology. She is a member of the Stella Network, a mentorship network for girls and women, and teaches at Brainster Co.
Klementina Ristovska is an independent researcher living in Skopje. Her academic training comprises a mix of interdisciplinary curriculums in the humanities and social sciences. This view of transgressing disciplinary boundaries and synthesizing knowledge from various streams has stayed with her influencing the way she engages professionally. She has participated in local and regional grassroots political organising through various social justice initiatives. Currently, she is working on a MA in Gender Studies.
UNSA Geto
UNSA Geto was founded in 1999 as an association of artists who revolted against the post war repression in their society. The association gathered musicians and artists until 2009 when they noticed that activists were joining them. They began working on being a bridge between art and activism. UNSA Geto uses art as a method for democratizing society and is attempting to develop not only subcultural “scenes”, but its own environment and local society, away from “the ghetto” and towards a free civil society. UNSA Geto manages its own space, DKC Incel, a social and cultural center, located within an ex-Yugoslavian factory. Within our space, our aims and activities include projects, our regional BL ART Festival, and collaboration with any organizations, informal groups, individual artists and activists in need. We give our infrastructure and technical personnel to all who are in need of a space for their activities.
Lidija Drakulić is a live audio engineer, production, event/logistics manager and one of the operators of DKC Incel, a social-cultural space. She is also one of the organizers of regional BL ART Festival, an activist festival in Banja Luka which has been running for twelve consecutive years. In her spare time, she enjoys creating comedy videos, playing instruments and experimenting with sound.
Vesna Malešević is an event/production manager, creative director and social/activist activity coordinator, with more than a decade of experience, as well as a journalist for IMPULS Portal. She is one of the operators of DKC Incel, a social-cultural space. She is also one of the organizers of regional BL ART Festival, an activist festival in Banja Luka which has been running for twelve consecutive years. In her spare time, she enjoys activism through art, good music and sociology.
Tačka komunikacije
The “Tačka komunikacije” (Communication Point) association was founded in October 2011 by a group of cultural management professionals and cultural theorists with the aim of bringing together those who create content and projects in the fields of culture and new media.
Our activities focus primarily on themes of cultural heritage and cultural tourism. By making use of new media tools we continue to work on collecting, archiving, presenting and promoting the heritage of local communities. The aim of the organisation is to raise awareness of these themes and engage the public in the preservation and reproduction of social history.
One of the goals of the association is to gain, through on-going projects, recognition for its contribution to the preservation and promotion of the cultural heritage and social history of a city and the further development of the identity of local areas or communities.
Andrija was born in Belgrade in 1984. He graduated Management and Production of Theatre, Radio and Culture at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade and has a Bachelor degree in Information Management at Singidunum University, Belgrade. He gained professional experience through various cultural events and in 2011 he was a founding member of Tačka Komunikacije, which has enabled him to work on the design and production of numerous cultural heritage, social history and new media projects.
Virdzinija Djekovic Miketic is a researcher, activist and cultural worker based in Belgrade. She is Ph.D. candidate at Faculty of Dramatic Arts (Belgrade), where she is also engaged as a teaching
assistant and researcher in the field of cultural policies. Relation between her theoretical and practical work based on active status as a cultural worker and activist on the independent cultural scene. She is project manager at Tacka komunikacije and she also works as a project and financial manager as a freelancer.
Kristina Krspogacin Stajic is a manager in a field of culture and media. She graduated Management and Production of Theatre, Radio and Culture at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade and has a Master degree in Management in Culture and Media at University of Arts, Belgrade. She gained professional experience through various projects in the field of theatre production, also through various TV and Radio shows she worked on. Since 2020, she works also as a freelance PR manager for the biggest international theatre festival in Serbia.
TULLA
TULLA Cultural Center’s activities are based on the institution’s mission to combine social activism with art and culture as an efficient form of creating higher social cohesion by providing marginalized groups with access to the arts, culture and new technologies.
The structure is implemented through the annual program of exhibitions, live music performances and festivals, theatre shows, the international exchange and promotion program, the platform for international artistic and educational cooperation, thematic debates and conferences based on research and observations of local, regional and international contexts
For over a decade he has been working as a professor of New Media at the Faculty of Arts in Prishtina where he was also The Head of the Applied Arts Department. He has an acclaimed music career as the leader of the alternative band Asgje Sikur Dielli. He also produced a solo intermedia performance which was shown in Albania, Italy, Mexico, and South Africa. Currently, he is involved in art management and promotion as co-founder and director of Tulla – Culture Center in Tirana, where he leads the visual arts, non-formal educational and music programs of the center.
Dafina Beqiri contributes to TULLA as fundraising coordinator and has 20 years of professional experience in complex projects and programs. Dafina is highly experienced in organizational, strategic development and change management with a consistent career record in Grant/Business/Project development and management. Throughout her career she worked closely with various stakeholders and contributed in the empowerment of different local, regional and international institutions from the level of government, civil society organizations to the business community to professionally grow especially in local and regional development, project management, fundraising, management and policy making.
Termokiss
Termokiss is a community-run center in Prishtina with the mission of urban and civil exchange, reflection and change-making.
After revitalizing an abandoned and forgotten building, “Termokiss” social center is open to a range of activities, which can be linked only by being non-for-profit and educational. Activities and organizing processes are managed by the community. The offered activities are determined by both the needs of the community and the skills which the volunteers have to offer. The space works to promote the ideas of mutual aid and cooperation.
Miranda Mehmeti is a community organiser at Termokiss social-cultural center located in Prishtina, Kosova. Her duties within this position include: hearing out members of the community and their ideas, co-creating the program, outreach with potential new members or partners, organizing events, and everything else in between.
Prior to working at Termokiss, Miranda studied English Language and Literature at the University of Prishtina, then served as a project manager for Wikimedians of Albanian Language User Group.
She enjoys digging, playing and talking about music – and proudly holds the “music nerd” title in the friend group.
Blend Bytyqi is a queer activist and artist based in Prishtina. He’s a co-founder of the queer collective “Hyjneshat” which organizes queer artistic and cultural events. He’s studying conceptual art at the University of Prishtina.
Blend is also a community organizer at the social center “Termokiss”.
In his free time he also DJs in different venues in Prishtina.
Artists
Ale Riletti [Italy]
Ale Riletti is a cultural creator whose work is often community based and aims to collect memories.
She exercises the embodiment of pleasure as a water skin. Mimetic desire of slipping through living beings made her feel like a raccoon. Trying to stretch roles by gender-playing, re-enacting languages and stories. Outputs are affective, temporary archives of community-empowerment, building new alliances. She does arts as well as many other precarious jobs: music may be a spectrum of a no-working Atlantide.
I work in between and live in between Rome, Marseille and Venice.
Instagram: @ale._.Sandrovna & @meta.forte
Mary Marinopoulou [Greece]
Mary Marinopoulou is an artist, curator and theatre practitioner who considers her artistic practice and research as social actions.
Her work has been driven by the need to explore the self and its environment as well as the complex strings that hold them together, which has been manifested through video art, short films, multimedia installations and curatorial work. As she progresses, her intention is to dive deeper into these multilayered relationships of identities and the world, explore them with other artists and practitioners, and together respond to the prominent issues of today and perpetual questions of the human psyche.
She is based in Athens, and has worked internationally.
www.instagram.com/theworldwithinaframe
www.facebook.com/marymarinop
Jelena Luise [Germany]
Jelena (Jelly) Luise is an artist and photographer preoccupied with the condition of transit.
Their practice traverses emotive repercussions of power and is rooted in a state of perpetual restlessness in the face of contemporary reality. Her image-making is informed by a shifting set of identities and the slippages that occur during translation. Approaching the photographic apparatus with a sense of elasticity, their practice extends into free association, honouring the unconscious of images. Often depicting radiant but troubled scenes, her work is informed by an underlying sense of uncanniness, entropy and unrest.
She has lived and worked in Berlin since late 2020.
Instagram @jelenaluise
Jelena Gajinović [Serbia]
Jelena Gajinović is a new media artist and designer working across disciplines.
Interpretation of cultural heritage and presentation of it in physical and digital form is her main interest. Focusing on the process of archiving and preserving tangible and intangible heritage She explores the interrelationships and the relevance of visual information. She is a member of the Association of Fine Artists of Vojvodina, the International Federation of Journalists and she acquired the status of an independent artist.
She is based in Novi Sad, has worked and studied in portugal and participated in many solos and collective exhibitions.
Lea Blau [BiH]
Lea Blau is an artist, actress, theatre maker, singing and moving across disciplines and on stage.
In her work, Lea explores various languages of contemporary performance with an emphasis on challenging the format between a performer and a spectator. She is not limited within a specific medium, but explores the coexistence between visual, sonic and physical aspects in a live performance.
She is based in between Banja Luka and Rjieka and has worked and learned from some of the most exciting contemporary and scenic artists today.
Instagram: @lea_sekulic
gm-production.ru/en/actors/sekulic-lea
Sezer Salihi [North Macedonia]
Sezer Salihi is an artist, film practitioner, and researcher who through his artistic practice and knowledge aims to impact the social space and community.
As a traveller his curiosity to delve into mystery is a stimulus to create known worlds in distant realities. He works through photography and cinema, and has directed and scripted various films among documentary, shorts, music clips and commercials. Through his movies and papers he does not want to show only to be able to dive into interdisciplinary arts but that he can work across different topics known to his social and human environment. His passion about the invisible: unheard and untold stories, for him art and humankind are prominent fields to research and journey across reality and beyond.
He is based in Istanbul and Skopje, he is working internationally.
Instagram: @sesalihi
Diona Kusari [Kosovo]
Diona Kusari is a writer, researcher, and multidisciplinary artist.
She tries to bring the focus of an overly-automated society to “hidden” and shared knowledge – which may be evoked in conceptual frameworks such as – esoteric practices, hermeticism, divine law, the collective unconscious – the fabric that has organically kept consciousness and the cycles of life in place and evolving. Her practice attempts to foster a universal language, which is not so much based on what can be witnessed and gathered at face value, but reading between the lines, sensing, and symbolism.
DIona is based in Pristina and has engaged in civil society in Kosovo for the last 5 Years, working in research and advocacy in the fields of environment and sustainability.
Instagram: @dionakusari
Lori Lako [Albania]
Lori Lako is a visual artist working across several media and exhibition formats.
Her artistic practice reflects on the condition of postmodernity in a fast moving world among a multitude of images and information that hinder historical remembrance and the research of personal identity. One of the important elements of her artistic work is the investigation of the contemporary mediation of the internet and digital devices, whether in historical or personal occurrences.
She has worked and exhibited in between Albania, Kosovo, Italy, Germany, Austria and soon will work overseas in New York.
Instagram: @lori_lako
Researchers
Đurđica Bjelošević [Bosnia]
Đurđica Bjelošević is a painter and restorer, interested in working with waste.
She has been collecting and using recycled material for artistic purposes for a long time, within which she created paintings, installations and sculptures from recycled material. Through these activities she has led several creative workshops for children on the topic of recycling and upcycling. Approaching commonly held habits of contemporary society that endanger and pollute the environment, she tries to convey to the youngest the right attitude towards nature’s well being, through the ingrained value and possibilities of creative use of waste material, that in her work is mostly plastic.
She is based in Banja Luka.
Klelija Zhivkovikj, Klementina Ristovska [North Macedonia]
Klelija Zhivkovikj is a transdisciplinary designer, engineer and artist with a love for critical thinking and bewildering.
Formally trained in several design disciplines, her ongoing research practice investigates the building blocks of intimacy as organizing principles for models of resource extraction and distribution which can serve as alternatives to the existing ones. She works with installations, digital media and design pedagogy. Her most recent work is the artist book “Prototyping tenderness: A personal log of a dying world” commissioned and published by Private Print Studio. She is a co-founder of the interdisciplinary design studio Pillow Talks, the design-based inquiry into the digital transformation DGTL12, and the Platform for civic engagement through artistic and cultural practices Sociopatch.
She is based in Skopje.
Klementina Ristovska is an independent researcher working across critical theory and activism.
Her academic training comprises a mix of interdisciplinary curriculums in the humanities and social sciences. This ethos of transgressing disciplinary boundaries and synthesising knowledge from various streams has stayed with her, influencing the way she engages professionally. She has taken part in local and international collaborations and grassroots political organising. Currently working on a MA in Gender Studies, she is focused on her foray into artistic research through the involvement with Skopje-based Platform for civic engagement through artistic and cultural practices Sociopatch.
She is based in Skopje.
Bora Baboci [Albania]
Bora Baboci is an artist and spatial researcher, her research interests are merged within her artistic practice and production.
Her research is focused on informal space craft, dwelling-in-travel and migratory constructive behaviors. She focuses on the domestic scale as well as the scale of landscapes and ecologies. Her artistic work ranges from drawings to performative installations, exploring the emotional body, its drives and altered states, as well as its physiological memory and roots in space. She has participated in several european residencies and biennales as well as contributed with her research work in publications regarding space and architecture mostly in Europe.
She is based in Tirana.
Ljubica Slavković [Serbia]
Ljubica Slavković, Ljuba, is an architect and an urban planning researcher who runs complex projects in the field of urban politics.
She is a teaching assistant and a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Architecture, University of Belgrade, author and project manager at the Center for Cultural Decontamination in Belgrade, and a co-founder of expert organization Nova planska praksa, baza za urbanistička istraživanja i razvoj planiranja (New Planning Practice, base for researching and developing urban planning). She is primarily focused on researching and educating in the field of urban planning, urban politics and production of space, and in the wider societal contexts, empowering and advocating development and implementation of principles of good governance. She has led numerous local and international projects and programs, research, exhibitions, debates, educational forums, workshops, publications, presentations and actions. She is active as a lecturer and public speaker, and is an awarded author, with several publications and numerous articles published.
She is based in Belgrade.
Rika Krithara [Greece]
Rika Krithara is an artist and researcher, Her work explores issues of perception, environmental destruction, and critical questions on historical memory.
The core of her practice consists of field work in remote mountain regions of multi-layered historical density through video sequences and performative walks. In her video installations, Krithara merges fragments of her mountain days, fictional landscapes, documentary references and sculptural elements. She seeks to place Mountains as a space of connection, thereby expanding perception into resistance and counter-memory. Krithara had 6 solo exhibitions and participated in several group exhibitions at institutions, museums and artist-run projects in Europe.
She is based in Athens.
Shpat Shkodra [Kosovo]
Shpat Shkodra is anthropologist, a researcher, and a social worker. His works explores spatial memory, cultural practices, and collective memory.
His academic training mostly focused in ethnographic methodology, comprises of a mix of arts and social sciences. Up until this point his points of research are mainly focused in artistic research, the production of spaces, cultural practices, and exploring issues of species interconnectivity. He has participated numerous local and international projects and programs, research, arts, debates, educational forums, workshops, publications, presentations and actions. He is currently working as a social worker.
He is based in Prishtina.
