Partner’s organizations from Sarajevo / New York, Mostar, Banja Luka and Berlin develop and realize their own, independently conceived, projects and programs related to the general subject of the project "De/construction of Monument".
SCCA was founded by the Open Society Fund Bosnia and Herzegovina at the end of 1996.
Since 2000, SCCA has operated as an independent, non-profit professional organization, led by a five-member executive board. SCCA's team consists of a director, three program coordinators and two freelance associates.
SCCA is located in two rented spaces at the Academy of Fine Arts in Sarajevo (the office and library are in the cupola and the Internet café so.ba is on the ground floor of AFA building) and also rents one studio (where the multimedia production pro.ba is located).
SCCA is one of the founding members of the International Contemporary Art Network (ICAN), the successor of the network of Soros Centers for Contemporary Art; it is also one of the founding members of the Balkan Art Network (BAN).
From its beginnings, SCCA has produced and organized numerous exhibitions, art actions, workshops, seminars, lectures and presentations in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and abroad; the Center has supported the production of artworks, produced a number of multimedia works, published catalogues and other art publications, and assembled art documentation.
SCCA does not have its own gallery space. SCCA is a mobile art center, complementary and alternative in relation to the already existing art institutions.
Most of its projects, such as annual exhibitions, are held in open spaces of the city. The change of environment, the relocation from art-oriented space (the gallery) to non-art-oriented space (the street), changes an artist's manner of thinking and behaving, his/her choice of subject matter and materials, and his/her way of communication with the public. New meeting places and new art scene are created. Art becomes a part of everyday life. The emergence of this new concept not only relates to a change in the artistic paradigm, but also to a change in the understanding of the function of culture and art. This kind of concept has proved itself to be productive, has expanded the notion of art, and has become a corrective agent to local artistic and public life.
SCCA is a gathering place, an active promoter of new cultural model, new events and developments in art. It unites the functions of institution (information/documentation / education center) and active participant in the artistic scene (production center). As the cultural life in the city is mainly reduced to the level of one-time events or traditional manifestations for the general public, the Center considers that its primary role is to keep program continuity on three basic levels:
SCCA recognizes, articulates, supports and stimulates (in terms of production, organization and expertise) new tendencies and needs in contemporary art, and to educate students and emerging artists in subjects that are not available in schools or other academic programs.
SCCA develops two-way communication between BH and international artistic communities, and promotes new forms of art beyond territorial boundaries.
SCCA establishes active cooperation with BH artists in the Diaspora, and with artists and similar centers in neighboring countries and in the region.
SCCA directs its attention, first of all, towards the broadest, non-artistic public. Its goal is to bring this public closer to new and unconventional art (public art, site-specific art, environmental art, activist art, new media art), which occurs in "non-artistic" places, has a humanizing effect on the social and urban space and becomes part of everyday life. On the other side, SCCA directs its attention to young people-high-school students and students of the Academy of Fine Arts and other university faculties, who, with education and opportunities to realize their own projects, become (emerging) artists or a new dedicated public.
SCCA, with its technical resources and flexible organizational structure, it is qualified to carry out long-term projects. Depending on conditions and changes in the environment, it is able to react quickly to new situations, adapting its working materials and methods, but remaining true to its primary function of an institution and active participant in the scene, one that engages in the production, promotion and development of contemporary art and new media in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BH).
SCCA secures its financial support from domestic and international grants and donations, and on the basis of proposed projects.
Soros Center for Contemporary Art was founded in 1996 as one of the last in the network of twenty Soros Centers for Contemporary Art in Central and Eastern Europe. Its organizational and program structure was based on a concept common to all the centers in the network. The primary intention of the whole project was the creation of a contemporary, flexible organization that could act as a corrective agent or complement the institutions of the old system; the program mission was to keep contemporary art alive in countries in transition and ensure its participation in international artistic currents. Its basic activities - documentation (creating a database and forming a library), awarding donations (financing and co-financing programs and projects of institutions and individuals), organizing annual exhibitions and collaborating with other centers - were adapted to local needs and conditions.
SCCA's First Annual Exhibition in 1997, "Meeting Point", - a two-month series of installations, actions and performances in creative response to the historical and architectural context of one specific place, the summer garden "Culhan" located in the remains of a 16th-century Turkish bath in the heart of Bašcaršija (the old town), and the screening of collected video works that were created during and immediately after the war - defined the fundamental programmatic directives of SCCA.
As a result of great interest and the need to systematically continue what was begun the year before, 1998 and 1999 initiated a new projects in out door spaces and continued work in the electronic and digital arts. A technical base was created for the multimedia production pro.ba, which enabled a large number of artists to create higher quality and more professional video works, as well as the means by which the Center could document its own activities and the activities of artists. Video works and installations produced in pro.ba have been presented in the museums, galleries, festivals and exhibitions in the country and abroad. Parallel to its production, SCCA also organizes educational activities in this field via workshops and seminars (the Academy of Fine Arts still does not have a multimedia department).
Until 2000 SCCA organized three Annual Exhibitions ("Meeting Point", summer café Culhan, 1997; "Beyond the Mirror", different locations / sites in the city, 1998; "Under construction", facade of the National Gallery of BH, 1999), realized and supported the production of numerous groups' and individual projects.
In 2000, SCCA officially registered as an association of citizens (that is, a non-profit organization), changing its strategy and tactic, but not its essence. Attention was directed to the "export" of new art from BH, art that was already recognized as having originated with SCCA's support.
In 2001 SCCA founded Internet café so.ba.
Dunja Blažević
Amra Bakšić-Čamo
Urban Movement Mostar has existed since 1999 while its Association was registered in June 2001, with the permanent membership of 30-50 from all over the world (France, Australia, Sweden and the U.S.A., but mainly from Mostar). Our members are students, intellectuals, workers and pensioners...
The goals of Urban Movement are to develop critical mind and individual thinking, to demystify newly established national values and the media, to overcome national mythologies, to raise public awareness on the relevance of public good, and to put an end to urban devastation.
The tools used by the Urban Movement initiative are radio, television, press, literature, and various artistic actions. Urban Movement has realized numerous actions, such as the cycle of radio programs "Walking down the Victims of Democracy Street", the exhibition entitled "Beauty of Reconstruction and Construction" that was presented in France (Chambery, Lyon and Grenoble), satirical tales, etc.
The initiative to construct the monument commemorating Bruce Lee in Mostar began with an open public debate on the "Monument to Bruce Lee", held on 20th July 2003, on the anniversary of the death of the "man who has been simply loved by everyone". The proponents of this initiative accentuate, as one of the reasons to build the monument, that there was a great deals of our lives, in the times when politics and ideology has poisoned all pores of everyday life, the memories of our childhood and of true human values that had nothing to do with politics and the "grand causes". Today, when all the moral values have collapsed, when children walk around armed with guns, criminals being their role models, the monument to Bruce Lee in the heart of the City of Mostar would be a reminder of children's' dreams of a more just world where sheer force would not be the value that matters, but rather the skill, speed and power of will of the man who fought for justice.
Confident of our noble mission that brings back to the streets - wherefrom it actually originated - a popular icon, a champion of justice whose ethnic background is absolutely irrelevant to us all, we - the boys and the girls from Urban Movement Mostar - see the statue of Bruce Lee, cast in bronze, in his original size and in his typical martial-art posture, set on a low podium, and with the fountain from which only those who stoop low enough to pay tribute to the great hero would be able to drink water.
"I hate to tell people that I am from Mostar since they immediately ask me whether I am from East, i.e., Bosniak, or from West, i.e., Croat Mostar. That is one of the main reasons for building this monument. We hope that one day people would say: Yeah, I know Mostar. That's the city with the Bruce Lee monument. (Nino Raspudiæ)*
*Excerpts from the texts from the www.bljesak.info website
Bruce Lee Monument in Veliki Park, Mostar
inaugurated on November 26th, 2005 at 3 pm.
The author of the Bruce Lee monument is Ivan Fiolic from Zagreb. The Bruce Lee monument is made in collaboration with the Sarajevo Center for Contemporary Art.
About the Bruce Lee Monument
"In July 2003, during a public presentation, Urban Movement Mostar NGO came forward with an initiative to build up a monument to Bruce Lee in the city of Mostar.
The Bruce Lee-monument initiative represents an attempt for the public spaces to regain their meaning and at the same time to question the significance of monuments and symbols, the old and the new ones as well. By mixing up a «high» stylistic registry (monuments, grandeur, bronze) and a «low» one (mass-culture, kung fu, heroes of our childhood), a short circuit of reception is produced: the «high» stylistic registry is being deconstructed and the overwhelming mythomany is being ironized (Who are our heroes? Whom to and why do we build monuments?), but in the same time the «low» registry is being revalorized, for its power to evoke little ordinary things of everyday life, that do not have anything to do with politics and ideologies, and that bring people and nations together, instead of separating them (everybody is fond of Bruce Lee: Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs, left and right political options…). The value of Bruce Lee's figure lays in its universal character and in its concreteness, capable of provoking concrete emotions, first of all a sense of necessity to fight for justice. Therefore, in Mostar it is not the actor or the character played by him that the monument is being built to, but it is the very idea of justice, represented in a plastic and universally acceptable way, that is also able to awake some positive vibrations through the figure of the famous kung-fu hero we have loved so much during our childhood.”
Mostar, Veliki park
26. 11. 15.00
Nino Raspudic
Urban Movement Mostar
The Centre for Informative Decontamination (CID) is a non-profit, nongovernmental youth organization founded in Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The role of CID is strengthening local and regional community through raising awareness for establishing modern civil society.
The CID has several branches: legal, cultural, information and online. After the Law on Free Access to Information was drafted we launched a campaign to inform citizens on their right to demand specific information from the local and republic authorities. Cultural branch deals with issues like concerts, exhibitions, book promotions, round tables etc. CID is the only NGO in the region that produces the printed media (Buka magazine) dedicated to provide truthful information to the young people of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The majority of young designers and some of journalists, who were involved in similar projects prior to this time, joined us and actively contributed to sharpening the critical edge of our magazine. Beside BUKA Magazine we have one of the most popular web sites (www.6yka.com). The most ambitious project run at the moment is Buka TV Talk Show that is broadcasted at Alternativna Televizija Banja Luka (ATV).
ATV signal covers more than four million people and according to the most recent survey Buka TV Talk Show is one of the most popular shows currently broadcasted in the region.
Before we embarked on establishing the CID and projects relative to information we've been involved in student media (we run Banja Luka University Magazine- BUM for three years). During this period we have been promoting critical thinking among students in Banja Luka and BiH, whilst at the same time we deeply supported free media and student movements from Serbia who fought against Milosevic's regime. For few consecutive years we had direct cooperation with OTPOR from Serbia, in terms of providing them media support, printing and distributing anti-regime materials, especially during the times when most of free and independent media were officially banned to work. In that respect, in order to cover Serbian market we often transferred BUM across Serbian- Bosnian border over illegal channels since that was the only possible way to get the independent news in the country.
CENTER FOR INFORMATIVE DECONTAMINATION BANJA LUKA
Aleksandar Trifunović
www.6yka.com
The Children's Movement for Creative Education is a non-profit organization that helps children and teenagers learn to overcome ignorance, hatred and violence at the personal and group level through focused academic projects and art-based curricula. Working in inner-city classrooms, we invent new approaches to standard educational material that emphasize cooperative learning and an informed understanding of world events. In schools in post-war countries we work with young people to create location-specific, culturally resonant programs that give them the opportunity to desribe their experiences during and after a conflict, and through the process begin to heal. Through international presentations of artwork and writing produced in these programs, CMCE helps young people find their voice in the world and educate the global public about the consequences of war. All CMCE programs cultivate self-expression, self-awareness, collaboration, and the mutual respect needed to build a peaceful future.
THE CHILDREN'S MOVEMENT FOR CREATIVE EDUCATION NEW YORK
www.childrensmovement.org
info@childrensmovement.org
Elana Haviv
Kate Chumley
NBK was founded in 1969 on the initiative of a group of Berlin citizens. Since then, its aim has been to introduce contemporary arts to a wide public by means of exhibitions and other forms of presentations (one of the Kunstverein's priorities is the organization of exhibitions of contemporary art). After the reunification of the two parts of the city, these tasks have extended to cover the whole of Berlin, and the NBK is seeking to make its own contribution as eastern and western districts gradually grow together in the field of culture.
In 1970 the NBK founded the first Artothek (Art Library) in Germany, which lends works of art to the inhabitants of Berlin free of charge. This department also includes the Artothek mobil, which compiles and arranges thematic exhibitions mainly for schools. Our Video-Forum, which has existed since 1972, comprises a comprehensive collection of international artists' videotapes that may be shown to interested viewers on request. The collection also includes our own productions. We have also started a CD ROM Collection.
A matter of great importance of the NBK is its function as a mediator between contemporary art and the public. For this reason, we do not only organize exhibitions, but numerous supplementary programmes, such as the weekly Treffpunkt NBK (Meeting Point NBK), which offers lectures, discussions with artists, performances and other art related activities.
The work of NBK is subsidizes by the Berlin Senate Administration of Science, Research and Culture and is financed primarily by donations from the Foundation Deutsche Klassenlotterie Berlin.
NEUER BERLINER KUNSTVEREIN
www.nbk.org
Kathrin Becker