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Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia has organized the
multimedia exhibition by young artists from Serbia and Kosovo,
between February 14 and 17, 2018 at the Cultural Center Parobrod in
Belgrade.
The exhibition is organized within our program
“Serbia and Kosovo:
Intercultural Icebreakers”, which connects young artists, academics,
students, professionals in media and other participants of public
and cultural life in order to create a common ground for shared work
and empowerment for further joint cooperation.
We launched the program at the same time the Brussels Dialogue
between Kosovo and Serbia started, aiming to help the efforts
towards reconciliation and renewed cooperation between our two
societies. Through our program, which is now entering its fourth
year of existence, hundreds of young people from Kosovo and Serbia
have been breaking the existing stereotypes of each other through
joint creative work and the creation of a network of cooperation and
friendship, which, besides artistic community, also includes members
of the academic, media and public institutions.
What is particularly encouraging is that after participating in our
program, these young people, who are the future of our societies,
have remained closely tied in both friendly and professional manner,
spreading the positive trends of cooperation and reconciliation
among other members of their generation in Kosovo and Serbia.
Our ambition is to continue to provide them the support they need so
they can continue with the hard, but necessary, work of constructing
a better future and relations not only between Kosovo and Serbia,
but within the entire region. We are proud of their original and
innovative work.
Within our program, over the past four years, we have organized
numerous exhibitions, festivals, forums, concerts and educational
exchanges. We also began cooperating with institutions such are the
University of Belgrade and the University of Prishtina.
We see these efforts as an important addition to the official
dialogue between Belgrade and Prishtina, for which we hope will
achieve positive results. At the same time, we are aware that there
are other ways to contribute to the progress in relations and the
creation of a better future for all of us, and we see our program as
part of these efforts and as an important support for official
dialogue between the two countries.
The exhibition aimed to offer the opportunity to its authors and the
audience to depart from the spiral of negative political, cultural,
institutional and media influences with regard to relations between
Serbs and Albanians.
Our team of young, emerging artists from Kosovo and Serbia invited
you to witness their multimedia artistic expressions that serve as
proof of the reclamation of their right to reconciliation and their
strong intention to create a common culture of peace and friendship
between our two societies.
Their works of art in all of their various forms, among other
things, aimed to deconstruct the conventional images of “The Other”
and to show how easy it is to break free from the imposed discourse
that doesn’t contribute to reconciliation and cooperation among
young people from both societies who share the same dreams, hopes
and problems.
By entering this place where the fruits of their joint work were on
display, the audience contributed to the "possibility of creating a
dialogue" as well as empowering its beneficial, healing effects for
our societies.
Simultaneously, we hope that the works of art exhibited will help
everyone in overcoming the (un)conscious bias since our social
realities still consider “The Other” as a foe, claiming that the
time has pass for ever being friends again.
We, as members of young generations, couldn’t disagree more and want
to inform you that we have got the time to get to know each other
better – and more importantly – to live and work in piece, never
forgetting the past, but with strong dedication to building a
brighter future for all.
Participants:
Teodora Savić, Shpat Maloku, Vana Filipovski, Eni Pirana, Ana
Novaković, Azem Deliu, Katarina Ilišković, Flutur Mustafa, Ivan
Dinić, Ilma Kitivojević
Exhibition featured also:
the animated film "Q&A" directed by Nebojša Petrović, Izabela Mašić
and Demir Mekić; Starring: Rade Obradović, Rajmonda Ahmetaj, Shqipe
Gashi;
and promotion of a booklet with the essays, poems and short pieces
by the participants about the personal changes they experienced
during the encounter and the joint creative work with “The Others.”
The exhibition is part of the program
"Serbia and Kosovo:
Intercultural Icebreakers" implemented by the Helsinki Committee for
Human Rights in Serbia. The program started in 2014, and we hope to
keep it running for the foreseeable future with the help of our
numerous partners.
In 2017-2018 the program was supported by Robert Bosch Stiftung
GmbH.
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