Monthly Archives: October 2015
We are Europe
Magnetic Field B (Resonate festival), Belgrade
We are Europe is a 8 festivals-forums Cooperation project which works for promoting electronic, independent, digital and visual cultures in Europe. This project will unfold for threes years around two parts: an artistic one and a professional and political one. Each collaborator will propose a program for its seven partners as a part of their festival : 56 dedicated stages, artistic backgrounds, cartes blanches program, event concerts, installations will aim to present a strong cultural diversity in cultural, independent and visual cultures, a right balance between headliners and newcomers, mixing local, national, european and international artists which will bring an important intercultural dialogue between them. The festival invited will be a curator of a program, a stage or a project. European artists will be exposed and the artistic direction of each partner will be valued and enhanced to local audiences, which will promote the guest european event to develop its public and recognition and exporting its identity and culture across the whole Europe. The idea is also to introduce local young artistic talents to a european audience and get these newcomers on stage at a major international festival through a strong professional visibility and the support of partner festivals.The aim of the professional component of We are Europe is to encourage the mobility of ideas and the birth of a political awareness in Europe through conferences and debates organized in each partner event. 24 professional forums will be held over the 3 years of the collaboration, focusing on renewal strategies and cultural policies in Europe, the redefinition of cultural entrepreneurship and the role of Culture in the city of tomorrow.
Europe Comics
Darkwood publishing house, Belgrade
The Europe Comics project consists in the creation of a European digital catalogue comprised of original comics created by authors from across the continent, translated into English.
The primary objective of the project is to grant wider visibility of European works of the Ninth Art by the means of digital technology and a universal language. This enables European publishers to showcase the works of domestic authors not only across national but European borders too, thus reaching markets not very familiar with the works of European authors, such as the USA and the Far East, contributing to the expansion of readership audience, as well as acquiring greater licensing and adaptation opportunities.
The role of Darkwood, as a partner in the project, is to make a selection, supply the original content created by domestic authors and translate them into English, while the responsibilities of technical preparation of e-comics, marketing and distribution are delegated to the project leader, France-based Mediatoon.
Next accelerator
University of Arts in Belgrade
NE©XT Accelerator: Creates transnational entry routes into international careers for generations of talented emerging artists, enabling them to make a living from creative production; Makes cultural/creative incubators more entrepreneurial, innovative and transnational; Boosts transnational mobility and entrepreneurial learning opportunities for arts graduates, art educators and incubator leaders; Celebrates cutting-edge artistic creation, transcending disciplines, genres, media and audiences; Connects young artists with cultural/creative players, sectors and businesses; Promotes national and European cultural and creative sectors as an engine of economic and social innovation. It makes the 3 editions of the NEU/NOW festival – showcasing the best work of recent art graduates – a major European cultural event. Collaboration with Prix Europa Berlin, Foam Photography Museum, Southbank London and Art Basel results in new arenas for NEU/NOW artists to show their work. It develops a Digital Support Interface, providing NEU/NOW alumni with unique opportunities to display work, drawing attention from international curators, directors, businesspeople and other cultural players. The Incubator Programme researches cultural/creative incubators, tests innovative models and initiates a Support Network, making incubating practices innovative and transnational. Recurring project themes: ‘international career training’, ‘innovative incubating’, ‘cultural entrepreneurship’, ‘new business models’, ‘access to finance and crowd funding and ‘new ways of looking at creativity and audiences’ are translated into training formats, building an attractive learning and exchange environment. The project is led by the European League of Institutes of the Arts – ELIA, together with European higher arts education organisations and partners from 14 countries, representing over 1,000 institutions and one million emerging artists. Key events will take place in Basel, Florence, Amsterdam and Brussels.
Aghet – The Great Catastrophy
No borders orchestra, Belgrade
In Turkish, ağıt is the term used to describe a wail, the audible expression of mourning.
However, to this day, there is still no commonly accepted name for what happened to the
Armenian nation in modern-day Turkey in the 2nd decade of the 20th century and the series of events that unfolded on April 24, 1915. Before the term genocide was defined by the United Nations in 1948, Armenian authors described the criminal expulsion of their people from Turkey as the Aghet – or catastrophe.
The massacres and death marches in the Ottoman Empire are estimated to have led to the death of up to 1.5 million Armenians. As the most important Turkish ally during the First World War, the German Empire was also embroiled in these criminal acts: The German Foreign Office saw fit to ignore the reports of deportations and attacks by the Young Turks. Some German officers even played an active role in the crimes committed against the Armenian population.
Nowadays, most researchers regard the events of 1915 as the first systematic annihilation of a nation – an act which served as a blueprint for all subsequent ethnically motivated campaigns of destruction and the animosity, which persists, even to this very day. Whether the Holocaust, Cambodia, Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, Darfur or the turmoil in East Timor – wherever you look, violence is motivated by the cultural or religious background of its victims.
Due to the unabated volatility on the geopolitical stage, Aghet aims to deliver much more than a sophisticated artistic act of commemoration. Instead, the project will endeavour to interact with the audience in an open and unbiased dialogue, the results of which will have implications that extend well beyond the confines of a concert hall.
This unique initiative, held to coincide with the hundredth anniversary of the start of the
deportations, involves the coming together of musicians and composers from Armenia, Turkey and Germany, not just in remembrance of the events of 1915 but also to seize the opportunity for making a joint fresh start. In conjunction with their Armenian and Turkish partners, the Dresdner Sinfoniker set up the Aghet concert project as an impressive act of reconciliation which points the way forward on how to deal with the aftermath of conflict throughout the world.
For a peace-loving world born from the rubble of the past.
Following on from Hasretim and Dede Korkut, Aghet is the third and final part of a trilogy in
which the Dresdner Sinfoniker deal with the history and culture of Anatolia and the Caucasus region, and wrestle with the concepts of cultural background and identity. A musical exploration of a region where the Orient meets the Occident and which has been transformed and pervaded by both, and whose significance as a cultural bridge it is impossible to overemphasise.
Aghet – The catastrophe as an opportunity for a fresh start. In the freedom of art lies the power to forge a new path. A joint commemoration as the launch pad for a better future.
