Movable Art Colonies: Transforming dying towns into art residencies
Channel: Zemunski Mali Umetnicki Centar ZMUC
Date: 2014-01-22

Movable Art Colonies: Transforming Dying Towns into Art Residencies is a result and agent of a new type of cooperation between the existing art colonies and organizations in the Balkans.They combine the Balkan cultural heritage, nomadic Roma heritage and the European multimedia art model. 
The purpose of the project is to incite and facilitate a direct exchange of ideas and experiences in the interdisciplinary and experimental art practice in the Balkans.
Moving colonies will meet the need of the contemporary artist to travel and work in different colonies in the region throughout the year. In addition, they will help both the artists and the audience to overcome restrictions imposed by national borders, and social and financial status. 
The existing regional art colonies have a long tradition and have cost considerable funds to keep alive, hence their unquestionable significance. However, they come with restrictions which do not favor the contemporary artists' creativity: They tend to focus on just one, mainly visual medium and typically take place once a year. 
We found alternative sites and streams of artistic activity in the Balkan villages, on the cultural margins, where sometimes significant artistic individualities are formed. 
Thus, two very dissimilar colonies --Terra from Kikinda and Jalovik Art Colony -- became the nuclei of cooperation with the newly established residences in the villages of Babe (Serbia), Reževići (Montenegro) and Pentar (Albania). By converting two private residencies into permanent art residencies, we allow the artists longer stay and work in different places outside their original environment, which today is the prevailing mode of artistic creation. At the same time, we are shaping the future artistic collaboration between the institutions in Serbia, Montenegro and Albania.