Belgrade Art Residency 2018

This year, for the first time, Inspiring Change introduced a training course & art residency which brought together emerging artists and art activists from 8 countries of five continents, in Serbia, from 6^th till 18^th of August 2018.

Over the course of twelve days, the residents shared their living and working space in Matrijaršija, Zemun (Belgrade), where they were hanging, cooking, printing, exploring…

Day 1 – team building with Rade Obradović

Glitch in everyday life – workshop with Miloš De Sko Ćosović (La Krc)

Meet the mentors & printing away evening @ Matrijaršija

During the residency, Ketan Borkar from India has experienced a super unusual journey, filming with Vuk Saletović from KC Baraka during their BLEF film camp, and then shooting his short film with the help of our volunteer & artist, Milena Brkić

Project management & getting started with Nina Petrov

TriP – social entrepreneurship board game with Centar za Razvoj Društveno Odgovornog Preduzetništva, led by Uroš Antić, Sonja Dakić and Srđan Plavšić; hosted at Papergirl Gallery Hub

Introduction to design thinking & workshop on branding and visual identity were facilitated by our designer, Ana Maksimović

Lishu Gang and her mentor, Lidija Antonović, with the help of other residents, filmed a stop motion video – responding to the topic of social isolation – at Magacin u Kraljevića Marka – you can find the video here; another one of Lishu’s mentors was Galina Maksimović, who shared her knowledge and experience in screenwriting

Of course, this wouldn’t be an actual Balkan experience if one of our activities didn’t take place in a kafana – we shared the story about the history of Inspiring Change with our residents at kafana Mali Šaran, which means so much to us

On a Saturday morning, we spent a pleasant time at the Gardoš Tower in Zemun, with Nela Antonović, founder of Teatar Mimart, discussing theater and politics, art and activism, body and the phenomena

Later that afternoon, Uroš Antić led a workshop on storytelling and using Twine as a tool for creating interactive online stories and various paths and turns a story could take

Following Uroš’s workshop, Miloš Tomić did an interesting session about drawing in impossible conditions, which inspired many of our residents, including Wenlin Tan, our artist from Singapore, who created her final performance inspired by her experience during Miloš’s workshop

The last workshop in the art entrepreneurial part of the programme was facilitated by Sanja Ristić at the new workspace of Nova Iskra; during the workshop, residents started developing their marketing strategies for the future projects and the implementation of the new knowledge started instantly

Monday afternoon we were joined by Irena Stojadinović and Psychosocial Innovation Network, which arrived with a group of refugees who learned printing techniques with Joshua Strydom, our resident from Zimbabwe; during his stay at the residency, Joshua was developing his work with his mentor Jovan Jović, a printing and performing artist from Belgrade

On a sunny afternoon in Knez Mihailova street, our resident Wenlin Tan, arranged a public collective comic book drawing, inviting the audience to participate in the creation of an art piece; this was supported by the Goethe Institute; her featured guest artist was Aleksandar Denić from MatrijaršijaMatrijaršija art collective – more about this event you can find here

Presentation at KC Rex, residents were sharing their practices while the team members, Nina Petrov and Nenad Pinter, were sharing the difficulties of organizing a project without a budget; Martina Maya-Callen (USA) and Joshua did a presentation on how to reach your target audience as an artist – more about this event you can find here

The final event was managed and coordinated by the cultural worker and performer Sabrina Bellenzier from Italy; choice for the final space was social centre NNK which is an artist squat on a boat on Sava river; all the participants were involved as performing artists – more about the event you can find here – Bodyfront at inspiring change

The last workshop for the end of the residency was facilitated by Srđan Plavšić (Kvartum), and every resident had an opportunity to try out a new method of printing on fabric

Special thanks to Dragana Čvoro for helping us get visibility; to our friends from Radio Beograd – Miška and Petar; thanks to Kaleidoskop, Designed.rs and Kapital Magazin for publishing our story; also to Mokrin House for raising our visibility

Thanks for the help from cold bench to Eda Sutunc (Turkey) project, and to Bojan Milosavljević and his consultations with Eda and Martina

Thanks to Coca Cola for providing us with supplies of juice; thanks to our generous Indiegogo supporters

Thanks to all the support from our friends Ocean Znanja (Croatia), Edis Nezirić (Bosnia), Aleksandar Đurić, Zoran Zlatković (Organizacija Kreativnog Okupljanja – OKO), our photographer Stefan Vujić, and of course Brian Kavanagh and Displacement Parkour for helping from the very beginning

Thanks to the best volunteers in the world – Milena Brkić (Zaječar) and Riste Risteski (Skoplje), as well as our host Bane from Matrijaršija, we couldn’t have done this without you!