SCP Regional Office Sarajevo

News
Startup of the four new regional cooperation projects The Swiss Cultural Programme in the Western Balkans (SCP) is very happy to announce the beginning of the new two-year regional cultural cooperation projects. These four projects have been selected by the SCP Regional Steering Committee on its meeting in November 2010, held in Tirana, Albania. The two selected projects are: Project name: New Politics of Solidarity through Cultural and Knowledge Production Leading Organisation: Centre for Cultural Decontamination, CZKD, Belgrade, Serbia Partner Organisations: Centre for Research, Art and Civic Engagement “The City” Tuzla Centar Grad, Tuzla, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Centre of Visual Arts MULTIMEDIA, Prishtina, Kosovo This Project fosters new forms of solidarity by the flow of knowledge, cultural exchange and artistic production between people of Tuzla, Prishtina and Belgrade. Leading agents of the process will be the research-education-production teams (REP) set up by each project’s partner. REPs will collect and collate data and information, archive materials and communicate their results through to the targeted beneficiaries; the purpose is to get together young people to harness new cultural codes and reshaped information and to empower them to create their own production through a growing grass-root network of volunteers. Their final products will be theater plays, art performances, exhibitions, and stage readings that activate public space for alternative knowledge and art production. These interventions will build on antifascist and modernist legacies of the 20th century; politics of commonality and its materiality in the 21st century. Thus, the Project addresses and fulfills the following needs: • To create non discriminatory codes and reshape information in the knowledge production; • To explore new patterns of solidarity and cross-border communication through culture and art; • To give rise to institutions of social change based on new politics of solidarity and equality; • To strengthen connections, communication and joint work between civil society actors and agents of culture and art in the region. Project name: Revival of City Squares in Balkan Cities Leading Organisation: CO-PLAN, Tirana, Albania Partner Organisations: Coalition for Sustainable Development - CSD, Skopje, Macedonia, EXPEDITIO, Centre for Sustainable Spatial Development, Kotor, Montenegro, Polis University (International School of Architecture and Urban Development Policies) U-POLIS , Tirana, Albania This project aims to contribute to the revival of city squares as viable public places that foster cultural identity and promote diversity through enforcement of public policies and active community participation. The action intends to achieve two major specific objectives: to promote national and regional policy discourse on how city squares can be transformed into vibrant community places (indeed, knowledge dissemination is the first step towards introducing new ideas and approaches how to transform public spaces into vibrant places that will serve community needs) and provide hands-on support to local authorities to undertake concrete actions for city square transformation. Activities envisaged with this project are designed to create an overall framework that encompasses elements of systematic approach: research that provides ground for feasible solutions based on creative energies and community aspirations and strengthened cross-sector and cross-border alliances that will ascertain visibility and onset of jointly established workable means for enactment. Project name: Liceulice - Platform of Activism Leading Organisation: YUSTAT Centre, Belgrade, Serbia Partner Organisations: Heartefact Fund, Belgrade, Serbia, Youth Initiative for Human Rights BiH, Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Dokumentarni Kinoquadrant (Dokukino/DKQ), Belgrade, Serbia, Foundation for Creative Development, Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Centre for Media Activities, Skopje, Macedonia, Project Space, Prishtina, Kosovo The Liceulice Project explores, promotes, generates and encourages: opportunities and achievements in the domain of cultural activism, urban art forms, alternative culture centres, innovative forms of artistic production, opportunities for media intervention within mainstream forms, cultural jamming, self organisation of young people and their domain, etc. Alternative attempts at social integration, inclusive artistic practices, theoretical analytical interpretative practices, civil society and its organisations, media and other forms of public expression, all of this flows through, and marks, the project with multiple, contrasting and eye-catching statements that can communicate with all social circles. Empowering and advancing the regional activism scene and all artistic/cultural activism aimed at promoting different integration trends, democracy and human rights, freedom of expression, intercultural dialogue and conflict resolution, as well as respect for minorities and alleviating discrimination. Improving the situation in the region by strengthening and forming networks of cultural life, strengthening cooperation (within and between sectors) as important factors of a participatory, open and dynamic civil society. The project will realise its mission/objectives through the strengthening of initiatives, mapping and grading, popularising and promoting activist action through the initiation of various forms of cooperation, capacity building of individuals and organisations, networking (artists of different profiles, activists - mostly young, media, institutions and businesses). Project name: Network for Participative Cultures of Remembrance Leading Organisation: LOJA Centre for Balkan Cooperation, Tetovo, Macedonia Partner Organisations: Documenta – Centre for dealing with the Past, Zagreb, Croatia, MESS – International Theatre Festival, Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Youth Initiative for Human Rights Serbia, Belgrade, Serbia), Multimedia Centre, Prishtina, Kosovo, Institute for Applied History, Frankfurt, Germany The project Network for Participative Cultures of Remembrance will contribute to the democratisation of the societies in the Western Balkans and to overcome the repercussions of the conflicts by creating participative and tolerant cultures of remembrance. Arts and culture are seen as a key element for this social development process. The concrete objectives in working towards this goal are: 1. To improve the capacities and the involvement of Civil Society Organizations working in the field of arts, education and history in the Western Balkans in building participative and tolerant cultures of remembrance in their societies. 2. To enable young people in the Western Balkans to reflect their past and the culture of remembrance in their societies and to exchange views with other young people in an intercultural dialogue. 3. To strengthen the role of arts, artists and artistic organisation in the Western Balkans in debating and dealing with important historical and political issues in their societies. 4. To bridge the division and create synergies between artistic and civic Civil Society Organizations in the Western Balkans. For more information the project sheets in full will be available soon on our website under Projects in realization www.scp-ba.net/cooperation_projects/projects_in_realisation/ overview

News

Startup of the four new regional cooperation projects
The Swiss Cultural Programme in the Western Balkans (SCP) is very happy to announce the beginning of the new two-year regional cultural cooperation projects. These four projects have been selected by the SCP Regional Steering Committee on its meeting in November 2010, held in Tirana, Albania.

The two selected projects are:

Project name: New Politics of Solidarity through Cultural and Knowledge Production
Leading Organisation: Centre for Cultural Decontamination, CZKD, Belgrade, Serbia
Partner Organisations:
Centre for Research, Art and Civic Engagement “The City” Tuzla Centar Grad, Tuzla, Bosnia-Herzegovina,
Centre of Visual Arts MULTIMEDIA, Prishtina, Kosovo

This Project fosters new forms of solidarity by the flow of knowledge, cultural exchange and artistic production between people of Tuzla, Prishtina and Belgrade. Leading agents of the process will be the research-education-production teams (REP) set up by each project’s partner. REPs will collect and collate data and information, archive materials and communicate their results through to the targeted beneficiaries; the purpose is to get together young people to harness new cultural codes and reshaped information and to empower them to create their own production through a growing grass-root network of volunteers. Their final products will be theater plays, art performances, exhibitions, and stage readings that activate public space for alternative knowledge and art production. These interventions will build on antifascist and modernist legacies of the 20th century; politics of commonality and its materiality in the 21st century.
Thus, the Project addresses and fulfills the following needs:
• To create non discriminatory codes and reshape information in the knowledge production;
• To explore new patterns of solidarity and cross-border communication through culture and art;
• To give rise to institutions of social change based on new politics of solidarity and equality;
• To strengthen connections, communication and joint work between civil society actors and agents of culture and art in the region.

Project name: Revival of City Squares in Balkan Cities
Leading Organisation: CO-PLAN, Tirana, Albania
Partner Organisations:
Coalition for Sustainable Development - CSD, Skopje, Macedonia,
EXPEDITIO, Centre for Sustainable Spatial Development, Kotor, Montenegro,
Polis University (International School of Architecture and Urban Development Policies) U-POLIS , Tirana, Albania

This project aims to contribute to the revival of city squares as viable public places that foster cultural identity and promote diversity through enforcement of public policies and active community participation. The action intends to achieve two major specific objectives: to promote national and regional policy discourse on how city squares can be transformed into vibrant community places (indeed, knowledge dissemination is the first step towards introducing new ideas and approaches how to transform public spaces into vibrant places that will serve community needs) and provide hands-on support to local authorities to undertake concrete actions for city square transformation.
Activities envisaged with this project are designed to create an overall framework that encompasses elements of systematic approach: research that provides ground for feasible solutions based on creative energies and community aspirations and strengthened cross-sector and cross-border alliances that will ascertain visibility and onset of jointly established workable means for enactment.

Project name: Liceulice - Platform of Activism
Leading Organisation: YUSTAT Centre, Belgrade, Serbia
Partner Organisations:
Heartefact Fund, Belgrade, Serbia,
Youth Initiative for Human Rights BiH, Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina,
Dokumentarni Kinoquadrant (Dokukino/DKQ), Belgrade, Serbia,
Foundation for Creative Development, Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina,
Centre for Media Activities, Skopje, Macedonia,
Project Space, Prishtina, Kosovo

The Liceulice Project explores, promotes, generates and encourages: opportunities and achievements in the domain of cultural activism, urban art forms, alternative culture centres, innovative forms of artistic production, opportunities for media intervention within mainstream forms, cultural jamming, self organisation of young people and their domain, etc. Alternative attempts at social integration, inclusive artistic practices, theoretical analytical interpretative practices, civil society and its organisations, media and other forms of public expression, all of this flows through, and marks, the project with multiple, contrasting and eye-catching statements that can communicate with all social circles.
Empowering and advancing the regional activism scene and all artistic/cultural activism aimed at promoting different integration trends, democracy and human rights, freedom of expression, intercultural dialogue and conflict resolution, as well as respect for minorities and alleviating discrimination.
Improving the situation in the region by strengthening and forming networks of cultural life, strengthening cooperation (within and between sectors) as important factors of a participatory, open and dynamic civil society.
The project will realise its mission/objectives through the strengthening of initiatives, mapping and grading, popularising and promoting activist action through the initiation of various forms of cooperation, capacity building of individuals and organisations, networking (artists of different profiles, activists - mostly young, media, institutions and businesses).

Project name: Network for Participative Cultures of Remembrance
Leading Organisation: LOJA Centre for Balkan Cooperation, Tetovo, Macedonia
Partner Organisations:
Documenta – Centre for dealing with the Past, Zagreb, Croatia,
MESS – International Theatre Festival, Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina,
Youth Initiative for Human Rights Serbia, Belgrade, Serbia),
Multimedia Centre, Prishtina, Kosovo,
Institute for Applied History, Frankfurt, Germany

The project Network for Participative Cultures of Remembrance will contribute to the democratisation of the societies in the Western Balkans and to overcome the repercussions of the conflicts by creating participative and tolerant cultures of remembrance. Arts and culture are seen as a key element for this social development process. The concrete objectives in working towards this goal are:
1. To improve the capacities and the involvement of Civil Society Organizations working in the field of arts, education and history in the Western Balkans in building participative and tolerant cultures of remembrance in their societies.
2. To enable young people in the Western Balkans to reflect their past and the culture of remembrance in their societies and to exchange views with other young people in an intercultural dialogue.
3. To strengthen the role of arts, artists and artistic organisation in the Western Balkans in debating and dealing with important historical and political issues in their societies.
4. To bridge the division and create synergies between artistic and civic Civil Society Organizations in the Western Balkans.

For more information the project sheets in full will be available soon on our website under Projects in realization
www.scp-ba.net/cooperation_projects/projects_in_realisation/

overview