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Seminar “Serbia
and Kosovo:
Intercultural Icebreakers”
August 7-11,
2015
The Helsinki
Committee for Human Rights in Serbia
and its partner organization from
Prishtina, the Liberal Democratic
Centre, organized the third seminar
titled “Serbia and Kosovo:
Intercultural Icebreakers” on August
7-11, 2015 in Belgrade. Young people
from Kosovo and Serbia, active and
interested in culture and arts,
spent five creative and working
days, making friends and exchanging
experiences and knowledge about
their societies and cultures.
Participants in
the seminar had an opportunity to
listen to lectures by prominent
authorities in arts and culture.
During the first day writer Sasa
Ilic delivered a lecture on
“Literature of the Separated Worlds
- Cultural Exchange as
Peace-building (Kosovo/Serbia)”
addressing the history of divided
societies, cultural and political
developments since early ‘80s until
today, the culture and politics of
denial, the avenues for cooperation
in arts and culture, especially at
the literary scene, and the
importance of cultural exchanges.
“Communication is being created
through culture and arts. It is
necessary to show that kind of
openness in the communication and to
allow the inflow of information and
stories in order to change
ourselves, and through our change we
can make changes in societies we
live in,” he said among other
things.
Film director and
investigative journalist Birol Urcan
tackled the topic “Culture and Arts
in Closed and Open Societies”, while
politicologist Milos Ciric delivered
the lecture titled “The Media,
History, Memory, and Confronting
With the Past”.
Besides lectures
young artists were attending the
workshops held by sociologist Demir
Mekic and philologist Tamara
Tomasevic. During the workshops they
teamed up for creative campaigns for
mutual respect, understanding and
tolerance to be staged in the period
to come. In this way, the program
helps the promotion of young artists
from both societies, who will be
working together for breaking
prejudices and stereotypes, and
promoting good relations between
Kosovo and Serbia.
The participants
in the seminar also visited
different cultural institutions and
organizations in Belgrade in order
to learn more about cultural and
artistic programs on Serb-Albanian
relations. One of them was visit to
the Center for Cultural
Decontamination, where participants
talked with Borka Pavicevic on so
far achieved Serb-Abanian cultural
and art cooperation.
The overall goal
of the program is to contribute to
renewing old and create new ties
between young people, academic and
artistic community, media and civil
society from Belgrade and Prishtina
by promoting intercultural dialogue,
reconciliation and normalization
process.
Program is
realized with the assistance of the
European Union under the Support to
Civil Society Facility 2013.
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