Entries by Projektteam URBAN INCUBATOR, Goethe-Institut Belgrad

Prestigious Swiss Daily Neue Zürcher Zeitung today reports on Savamala development plans:

Belgrade´s risky Mega-Project on the Banks of Sava River
"To Take the City to the Water"
Andreas Ernst



Building a superstructure over Sava-Amphitheater, an Arab investment scheme wants to fulfill an old dream for the City of Belgrade: to connect the Center with the water. But many Belgrade citizens anticipate a rude awaking . . .

Read the German language article here:

http://www.nzz.ch/feuilleton/kunst_architektur/die-stadt-zum-fluss-bringen-1.18403789" title="Neue Zürcher Zeitung"

Every city has quite a unique set of sounds - a kind of sonic postcard.
“Pulse”, therefore, is an audio-visual project which aims at describing and illustrating a specific urban environment by presenting the characteristic mixture of soundscape and visualization. It has a synesthetic role, i.e. it enhances the sensory and expressive experience of a city. Moreover, by building a collection of urban soundscapes, it can help to recreate our experience of a city and its specific areas.
Goethe-Guerilla has been exploring these numerous sounds trying to make a unique postcard of Belgrade, and more specifically Savamala, which is one of the oldest and most interesting urban neighbourhoods of Belgrade, and which has also been the focus of City-Guerilla, alumni of former Goethe-Guerilla generations since 2010, and the 2014 Goethe-Guerilla cultural activists for several years now.
The Savamala city neighbourhood, located on the Old Town riverbank of the Sava, is perhaps the most paradoxical part of Belgrade where opposites and contradictions co-exist. It is a place where old meets new, where you can see beauty and ugliness next to each other, where nature meets technology. One of its numerous paradoxes regarding sound is that within just a few meters you can hear the river quietly flowing and the deafening sounds of heavy traffic passing by.
When Goethe-Guerilla set out to create a specific soundscape of Savamala. they combined two types of microphones (contact and stereo) and walked about Savamala covering every aspect of the audible environment. DIY contact microphones were used to collect micro sounds based on vibrations. One of these sounds is, for example, the barely audible minute noise Branko bridge makes. The stereo recorder, at the same time, was used to collect the overall sound atmosphere, one of which for example is the sound of the river, definitively one of the most typical sounds of Savamala to the very attentive ear.
Goethe Guerilla have recorded over 40 hours of different audio material, including sounds of traffic noise, inner courtyards, the river and the riverbank, bridges and many more. These sound samples are available online now, on soundcloud and tumblr pages.
During the process, Goethe-Guerilla have thoroughly explored technical requirements, produced DIY microphones and used software which transforms sounds samples into compositions using a keyboard in various ways. As every object in Savamala has its own objective sound, by playing the samples on the keyboard the Goethe Guerilla members also express their subjective feeling. Through 88 keys of the keyboard, you can play for example, the bridge, the river, the tram, the traffic in Savamala, invent melodies, compose songs , or improvise individually and artistically on the motives objective sounds of various Savamala objects and places provide and make them even more specific.
Continue reading "Puls of Savamala and MitOst Festival in Novi..." »

U subotu 04.10.2014. godine, sa početkom u 19h, u Galeriji Štab, Crnogorska 10, Savamala, odrđaće se promocija povodom izlaska petog broja beogradskog izdanja arhitektonskog časopisa i istraživačke platforme Kamenzind.

Časopis je pokrenut u Cirihu 2007. godine, a njegovo srpsko izdanje je nastalo u okviru projekta Gete Instituta, Urban Inkubator, 2013. godine sa ciljem da se nova mišljenja i ideje uključe u debatu o arhitekturi i budućnosti grada i da se omogući novi oblik razmene mišljenja i iskustava među učesnicima - što nam je sada potrebnije nego ikad!

U petom izdanju moći ćete da pročitate analizu i stavove stručnjaka o projektu Beograd na vodi, da saznate kako se urbanističkom planiranju pristupalo pre 40 godina, da zavirite u jedan od najčudnijih muzeja na svetu i još mnogo toga drugog.

Dođite, podržite, razmenite misli, družite se, i preuzmite svoj primerak. Čekamo vas!
Tihomir Stojanović mrezakreativnihljudi@gmail.com 060/5-22-33-00

Pre-opening event for artists and friends: 25 September 2014, 20h, Gallery KM8, |Urban Incubator, Savamala

Opening: 26 September 2014, 19h THE CULTURAL CENTRE OF BELGRADE

Detailed program and all the information about B_Tour Festival in Belgrade and Berlin can be found in B_Tour Belgrade catalogue and on the websites www.b-tour.org and www.8010.rs

B_Tour is a Berlin based organization which revolves around guided-tours-as-an-artistic-strategy. This framework can provide both a fertile ground to bring audiences and artists together and generate a discussion about urban environments within the artistic world and outside of it. Chosen tours provoke city dwellers to become active participants in the creation of the spaces they inhabit. B_Tour is a platform for organizations, artists and citizens to network, collaborate, cooperate and exchange ideas about the cities we live in. This platform allows underrepresented narratives to surface and infiltrate the hegemonic discourse that shape cities.
“B_Tours” explore the politics of the public space, psychogeography, touring as an artistic strategy, gentrification, citizen’s social responsibility and more.

The characteristics of B_Tours
B because it is not A; because it’s the alternative to the narrative of conventional tours.
B because it is a personal Biography of the community.
B because it is breaking the boundaries between public and private space.

B_Tour generates an interaction between a guide, an audience and a space. On a route through the public space, a guide leads an audience through a narrative and is therefore a narrator interpreting the urban space. A B_Tour is conscious of the existence of multiple narratives and truths and presents the audience with one of these. It doesn’t provide THE true perception of a space.
A B_Tour is a political piece of art since it is perceived by its creators as a call to rethink and criticize the environments we occupy. Furthermore, B_Tours incubate social involvement and are therefore political.
A B_Tour is not a spectacle nor looking for conventional touristic “alternative city tours”. It tends to a subtle approach towards its environment. This subtleness and attentiveness is the result of the guide’s personal connection (artistic research, educational background, locality, interests etc.) with the space.

B_Tour | Belgrade

The main activity of 80|10 organization from Belgrade is based on international cooperation projects in the field of performing and visual arts, music and design. 80|10 is primarily engaged in cultural projects with the aim to show and support creativity, innovation, local specificity, international relevance and courage through art projects.

These characteristics were some of the main foundations for this year’s co-partnership with B_Tour Festival from Berlin in order to jointly create a satellite edition of B_Tours in Belgrade (followed after B_Tour Festival in Berlin) which promote and at the same time question the specificities of Belgrade (and Serbia) as well as local art scene. Together with international artists, it is an opportunity to bring closer international art initiatives with local audiences through a unique artistic visions of the urban environment.

B_Tour Belgrade edition is dealing with socio-political, cultural, historic and economic aspects which constitute the city. The festival’s program promises: Seeing the city with new eyes.
With the lack of governmental or any other support due to the global crisis common to many European cities, young people in Serbia working in the field of culture and creative industries are developing new, innovative projects trying to revive the socio-cultural scene by resourcefulness and creative strategies as the only way to be proactive in society.

How we are influenced by the city we live in and which city identity one adapts is what the B_Tour program is trying to investigate. Choosing Belgrade, B_Tour had a starting initiative of bringing support to the creative development and a wider participation of residents in the city by recognizing some of the important subjects for the functioning of the city and placing a concern on dialogue, collaboration, critical participation, and free choices. B_Tour Belgrade is trying to understand how the public responds to socially engaged art and relates to projects they participate in, where in some cases the audience is also a co-producer of the event/tour.

Focus is on the constant need for social transformation that seems even more urgent, finding out that socially engaged practices can be seen as a powerful and crucial form of political resistance. That is why the Festival, in a way, is taking responsibility and takes over a critical form of intervention as a reflection on problematic everyday situations. These initiatives should reach ordinary people finding themselves in specific situations to change something in their living conditions, even for a day.

Why Belgrade?
Having a situation where the options for cultural engagements in urban environments are narrowed, one of the choices is to use accessible space - public space more creatively and to find new ways to imagine the future of the city. We are trying to improve the city trough art and education by changing its dynamics toward new connectivity, with citizen participation at the root of urban change.

Belgrade edition of B_Tour aims to serve as a showcase for these initiatives and perhaps a way to generate more connections between artists and the audience through an idea to create alternative forms of participation and present new ways of seeing the city. Furthermore, through previous experiences, people who live in Belgrade have openness to the active use of public space and hence the idea of the festival coincides with Belgrade spirit and biography.
B_Tour owes a special thank you to Bitef Festival for given support and space in this year’s side program.

We also owe gratitude to the Cultural Centre of Belgrade (KCB), Cultural Center REX, UK Parobrod, Nova Iskra design incubator and Scene design studies (Department of Architecture and Urbanism) at the Faculty of Technical Sciences at Novi Sad University. We are grateful for the significant help from the Goethe-Institute Belgrade together with the Urban Incubator Association and District 6 Association and especially thanks to all the artists for their contribution to the program. These partnerships are creating strong local connections by making a sustainable network and an interesting program which will be of equal importance for partners, artists and the audience.

“When the school learns from the city” makes a very focused headline when online-blog futurefourcities reports on the “School of Urban Practice” in June. Ivan Kucina, now member of the Board of Curators of the Belgrade Urban Incubator Association, has initiated students´ projects in and for Savamala since the Urban Incubator project started in 2011 - and, with this quote, gets right to the heart of his approach of participatory architecture and urbanism today.

An now, in September, the wordpress-blog again picks up on Savamala activities of “vantage” and new Goethe-Guerillas: their first “Open Library” project in Serbia ever has been further developed and de-centralized in Savamala – bringing the idea of books as common goods which has been explored all over Europe to Belgrade´s Savamala district: take one – give one.

Read more:

when-the-school-learns-from-the-city

belgrade-public-books-in-savamala

Over the last week, “ulicezabicikliste” made some efforts to beautify their neighbourhood. Not really in the position to simply donate a real bike to each citizen of Belgrade, they, nevertheless, made a solid contribution to reducing car traffic in the city: now, they are actually sharing bicycle paintings on the walls surrounding their office with Savamala citizens. The neighbours love it.
Now, at least the street of Svetozara Radica looks less polluted.

Ulice za bicikliste is an independent organization committed to improving biking conditions and increasing the visibility of cyclists in highly-trafficked areas of Belgrade. We hope to see cycling and walking culture overtaking the car culture which is outdated and in many ways threatens the citizens’ well-being. Ulice za bicikliste was created on the basis of monthly Critical Mass events. We are proud to be an example of grassroots activism in Belgrade. Our activities take place locally, based on the interests and engagement of the community. Our local office will be at the Svetozara Radica 3, in order to conduct our activities in the area of Savamala. We plan to organize workshops with kids and locals on basics of bike maintenance and building bike stands that we want to place in Savamala. The Critical Mass events, that take places each last Saturday of the month, will from now finish in the area of Savamala bringing 300 to 500 cyclists each time and less car pollution in general.

Address: Svetozara Radića 3

* for more images click on the picture

It was early Friday evening when hauler boat “Toplica” slowly approached “Zupa”, the historical steam boat moored on the banks of River Sava. Sailors wrapped and fastened Zupa´s rear with iron cables, a crane lifted the gangway and set her free. No doubt, “Zupa” was about to make her first voyage in the last twenty or thirty years!

Zupa, now hundred and one year old, needed some extra pushing and holding from the side in order to sail again. It looks like PIM Company found a person responsible for what had been always declared a dangerous action because of the ship´s instability and some 30 m3 of machine oil spilling all over its lower decks.

At 18:15h exactly, Zupa stood tall on the river and was clear to sail off again. This is exactly what she was made for, back in 1913.

A few minutes later, on the Sava river bank, a commemorative walk escorted Zupa, towards her new destination next to the train bridge, on what might be her last voyage before being sunk, cut into pieces or left to rot.

In twilight, at 19.20h, Zupa found a new peaceful place, among other ships, at the very heart of the Belgrade ship graveyard.
Within an hour, the action of moving Zupa was completed, with high professionalism and cold precision. No celebration, and no speech was held.

As to Zupa´s future destiny, PIM – the proprietor company, when asked, only stated that the graveyard will be moved latest by February 2015 due to the Belgrade Waterfront project. Where Zupa will be moved then is yet uncertain.

For decades the ships were rotting here, the PIM – is under the restitution process and suddenly jobs are done quickly and with great interest. It seems that certain amount of Arabian camels with domestic camel shepherd can make things move quickly around river banks.

The morning after

The next day Zupa was again made approachable, after PIM workers installed the entrance platform. As we set foot on the boat, we could see the great results of high professionalism and cold preciseness, as most of the infrastructure built in last three months by the “Urbane Experimente” from Kassel, electricity cables, water cables, lamps, several grills, the list is actually very long, was stolen.

Nobody thought that pirates exist in Serbia, but now we are assured, and their mother ship is probably Toplica, named after the river and region in southeast Serbia.

We see an urge for the government who is keen in realizing the project Belgrade Waterfront, to come up with regulation plan and solutions not only for river floods but also for possible sand storms caused by stampede of camels and river pirates!
We will also demanded for camel stable to be built on the banks of the river, for animal’s sake and public health and security.

Thank you, The Weird, for making the gallery facade so rad!
Around three hundred people visited the exhibition opening of WEIRD GOES BELGRADE on 2nd July and saw the façade facelift.
The exhibition will be open until July 8th, and the works are for sale!
Opening hours: 2 p.m. - 7 p.m.
Continue reading "KM8 Facelift by THE WEIRD Berlin Street Art..." »

June 29th

On June 29th, Eagle Hills publicly presented their architectural model of a huge 3.1 Billion investment for Savamala in the Geozavod-building. While many questions still remain open, one message seems clear: there is no one to stop this investors´ dreams of Belgrade´s Sava waterfront, including a “Belgrade tower” near Gazela bridge, shopping mall, residential and office building on a scale which comes close to Tito´s vision of New Belgrade in the sixties of the last century.

Good news seems to be that the cultural parts of the traditional Savamala, including Spanish House and adjoining KC Grad/Krug building near Brankov Bridge will not be affected directly. Kraljevića Marka, Crnagorska street and the immediate neighbourhood will not be destroyed, Geozavod and Hotel Bristol along Karađorđeva street, the historical building of the Main Station are to be preserved – while the railway and bus infrastructure are covering a vast empty area are planned to be re-located.

When Eagle Hills, officially and for the media, invited politicians and private guests to Geozavod on Friday 27th at noon, around 300 not invited guests had to stay outside. For more citizens´ participation, as much as for more transparent planning processes and consequences, there seems to be room to move.

City administration already inspected “Župa”, the 1913 Austrian cannonboat and now a Parobrod cultural center initiative for a museum ship moored at River Sava close to Brankov Bridge. Together with other, rusty ships (and the community living on them right now), they are supposed to be cleared away or re-located within the next months.

Matthias Müller-Wieferig

2014.5.31-8.3
Gallery 202, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts

“Cargo East” is a collaborative project between National Taiwan Museum of Fine Art (NTMoFA) and Serbia’s Museum of Contemporary Art Vojvodina (MSUV). After Gazing into Freedom: Taiwan Contemporary Art Exhibition was held in Serbia in 2013, MSUV organizes Subdued Existence: Serbian Contemporary Art Scene, which is held in NTMoFA, to showcase the unique textures and creative perspectives of Serbian contemporary art.

Serbia went through a series of wars and political turmoil at the end of the 20th century. For many artists, covert activities, the subdued existence, were the only possible solution. Considerations of the relationships between local and global, regional and universal, intimate and public, personal and political are present within the contemporary art scene of Serbia since the beginning of 1990s transition process. The concept of Subdued Existence continues to apply to contemporary art and it also includes a variety of artistic approaches that explore the relationships of contemporary artistic practice with the scientific, technological, natural, social and personal environment.

The exhibition features 15 representative Serbian contemporary artists
/artistic groups, exhibiting 24 works of diverse creative media, such as videos, installations, photographs, paintings, and animations. Some of the participating artists strive to overcome the burden of conservatism of a closed community. Some are active internationally, collaborating and sharing knowledge and experiences with foreign counterparts through multimedia projects, festivals, workshops, seminars and residencies. Some examine social transitions, environment, issues of identity, and the existence of social stereotypes. Some explore the relationship between individual and common history through documents and artifacts, presenting the weight of history. Some criticize society, economy, laws, war policies, nationalism, discrimination, and the current consumerism by using objects, materials and equipment found in everyday life via diverse creative methods. They also analyze the connections between man and nature, nature and technology, exploring different lifestyles and personal habits, and attempt to overcome the many social problems accumulated over time by using humorous, sarcastic and absurd methods as their basic elements.

The significance of international art exchange is that regions with different cultural backgrounds can learn about one another through art, turning cooperative effort into the catalyst that facilitates dialogues and mutual understanding. This exhibition will bring Taiwanese audience across geographic and cultural distances to learn the different dimensions of the Serbian culture through the sharp observations and dialectical creative expressions by the artists.

Continue reading "“A Line for Savamala” – Drawing/Performance..." »

The Urban Cooks project as conceived by the School of Urban Practices started on Monday in Crnogroska 5.
The presentation of work and joint cooking event (fish soup made by locals) will take place in the Spanish House on Thursday from 12 o´clock.

The Urban Cooks Platform
is a project that seeks to integrate the knowledge and the experience of professionals from various European countries, together with local communities from Belgrade, Madrid and Skopje, to design a common and exportable toolkit to support citizen initiatives in public space. Urban Cooks Belgrade will be operated by the School of Urban Practices in Crnogorska 5.

SCHOOL OF URBAN PRACTICIES
How can the future of a city be designed when there are no financial means for investment, when legal issues remain unclarified, and when institutional procedures are slow? The project “School for Urban Practices” researches and tests new forms of city quarter development, using Savamala as their laboratory.

Address: Crnogorska 5

More about the project.

Boa Mistura will in the upcoming days paint an artwork, which will both give new visual identity to the Spanish House, and provide more light for the plants of the Zdravamala project. The artwork will be presented during MIKSER Festival from 5th till 8th of June.

“Boa Mistura” is an urban art group formed at the end of 2001 in Madrid, Spain. The term "Boa Mistura", Portuguese for "good mixture", refers to the diversity of perspectives of each member, i.e. visions which complement each other, and combine to create something unique and coherent. The collective´s members are architect Javier Serrano "Pahg", civil engineer Rubén Martín "rDick", Pablo Purón "Purone", graduated in Advertising and Public Relations, and two Fine Art graduates: Pablo Ferreiro "Arkoh" and Juan Jaume "Derko". The group works mainly in the public space, and has developed projects for example in South Africa, Norway, Berlin, Sao Paulo or Río de Janeiro.

A selection of images from both, exhibition and the opening day are now online.

Please find them here.

The GG#05 decided to roll their sleeves up and spark each other’s imaginations with a 4-day workshop!

From the 15th till the 18th of May, the group worked hard in search for new and interesting ways how to solve a number of project related problems.

Playing with old slideshows was perhaps the most interesting experiment yet. Combining light with some second hand parts, the group successfully managed to create a unique tool, which will aid them in upcoming projects.

Also, useful information was gathered via interviews. A few GG#05 members started collecting memories and anecdotes from Savamala locals in order to build their database. This information will be used primarily for projects that aim to introduce the true spirit of Savamala to a larger public.

Needless to say, the workshop was a complete success and its results are soon to be noticed.

May 13th, 2014
Daily Danas reported on May 7th about Župa, a historical cannon boat on the banks of River Sava.

The New Life of a Contemporary of the TITANIC
The Summerprogramme on historical steam boat Župa in Belgrade

On the right-hand banks of River Sava, between Branko-Bridge and the socalled “Tramway Bridge” (Trmvasjki most), the old steamboat Župa has been moored for some time now, a contemporary of the Titanic. Although she was sunk not only once, but even twice in her long and varied history, she – contrary to her contemporary Titanic, being the most famous ship in the world but sunk forever – she has always somehow managed to re-surface.

Today, Župa is one hundred years old and rather rusty, but nevertheless – or rather exactly therefore- her mysterious past raises the curiosity of all passers-by on the river bank promenade of River Sava. Thanks to Belgrade Cultural Center UK Parobrod, the Museum of Science and Technology and the Urban Incubator Belgrade, a Goethe-Institut project, the old steam boat has been re-vitalized. Although she might never “set sail” again, she now is being re-designed as a miniature cultural center on the water. On Friday, may 9th 2014, the summer programme on board of this new “culture ship” will be officially launched with a students´ research programme under the “European Capital of Culture” project umbrella.

It has been two years now that the old steam boat was first cleaned, fixed, and opened for cultural programmes.
In order to prevent further decay, in february 2014 a new renovation programme was initiated. In this second phase, Župa will be reclaimed as an attractive exhibition space of great cultural and historical interest which might attract tourists as well as locals. Film screenings on board will be one of the highlights of the Belgrade Filmstreet-Festival, a summerfestival set to re-enact the tradition of travelling cinemas screenings, in different squares, parks and otherwise, will be open airexclusively.

In addition, the Museum for Science and Technology Belgrade currently develops a permanent exhibition of the Serbian Shipping History on board of the Župa.This historical interest is due to the fact that in its longpast, Belgradehas always been one of the most beleagured cities in this part of the world. Almost all events of highest significance for the city´s destiny have taken place on Belgrade´s two rivers, Sava and Danube, or on their banks.

Therefore, the stories about the ships, moored in Belgrade, or once grounded here, belong to the most interesting chapters of the city´s history. This is why, in Serbia, altogether nineships - Župa being one of them – have been declared cultural monuments enjoying heritage protection regulations. A good decision, no doubt, because today, the Župa belongs to the landmarks of Old Belgrade which can be otherwise only studied on historical postcards.