Venue: Nova Iskra, Cara Uroša 18, Google map location
June 11, 18-20h

Activists of urban social movements throughout the region self-organize to defend open and closed public spaces, creating new spaces of commoning. To meet the needs of their communities, they are sketching the outlines of radically different social relations. Whether they are squatting from the need for housing or independent spaces of culture, whether they are defending parks and squares from predatory urbanism or experimenting with their organizational models – they are showcasing alternative forms of social organization. In their practice of commoning, they are united in the struggle against the dominant neoliberal urban processes – gentrification, privatization, and excessive exploitation of nature.

Do urban social movements from the region share the vision of social change? What are the scopes of urban activism? Can examples of good practice scale up? In this workshop with prof. Stavros Stavrides, activists and social movements researchers from the region will discuss what kind of social change they strive for and in what ways the diverse forms of urban activism contribute to it.

The number of workshop participants is limited. If you are interested in joining the discussion on perspectives of social change, reserve your place by sending an email to sara.nikolic@ifdt.bg.ac.rs

Venue: Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, Belgrade, Kraljice Natalije 45, 4th floor, Google map location
Start time: June 12 – June 15, 10-14h

This 3-day workshop, part of a major international CHANGE conference, will focus on China’s financial system transformation since the beginning of Reforms and Opening Up period, against the backdrop of the wider economic and ideological context.

The main material will consist of data driven analysis based on critical macro-finance methodology, with specific focus on the money-view approach to monetary hierarchy. It will incorporate (1) case studies of pivotal moments in China’s financial development to ground theoretical discussions in concrete examples (2) comparison to other countries’ financial systems at similar stages of development to provide a global context and identify institutional differences.

Milena Putnik, Nemanja Lađić, Suzana Gavrilović and Milovan Milenković
The project will be presented in the foyer of the University of Belgrade’s rectorate building from June 12 to 15, Google map location

Large open-pit mine at Kolubara and quarries at mountain Venčac are disturbed landscapes located near Belgrade. Four artists and landscape architects investigated the dynamics and forms of the visual impact of exploitation. The installation combines video material, photographs, and graphic representations of the landscapes, as well as a themed visit to one of the sites.

A dramatic transformation has turned these landscapes into liminal places: human intervention has

completely erased the previous state, and a new stability has not yet been achieved. Exploited places will have to go through a restoration process. Liminality, in addition to uncertainty and apprehension, also has a positive side: it enables the re-examination of the basic goals and values on which choices for the future are based. In light of the proposed spatial plan of the Republic of Serbia until 2035, which foresees an increase in mining activities, there may be more and more such places.

Project was produced by the Center for the Promotion of Science in the frame of art+science 2023 program, selected on the basis of Open call titled Change Drives Change.

Venue: Rectorate Courtyard, Google map location
13.06., 10:30h (Cinema coffee break)

Two connected films, ‘While We Wait’ (2023) and ‘The Longer We Wait’ (2024), are the first results of ‘Showing Up’ (2022–), a project on performativity developed through collaboration between the artist Saša Karalić and philosopher Željko Radinković, and with participation and support by the architect Snežana Vesnić and art historian Zoran Erić. These films include contributions from researchers from the Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory of the University of Belgrade, Belgrade-based writers and students from the Belgrade’s Faculty of Architecture.

The project ‘Showing Up’, departs from the theory of J.L. Austin, who defines performativity as ‘the capacity of speech to act or consummate an action’, and expands on this concept while examining other related theories that go beyond the analytical framework, exploring questions of contextuality and interpretability. The research emphasizes the role of performativity in the active, social construction of reality, and it’s structured as a continuous interplay between theory and (art) practice. The project uses different forms of public presentation, taking place on three different sites: on the streets, in the institutions and on makeshift stage, with all three locations being used as both physical spaces and conceptual frameworks.

RECAS Fellows in conversation with Basil Kerski
Venue: University of Belgrade’s rectorate building, Room 3, Google map location
Moderators: Petar Žarković and Ivan Ejub Kostić
June 14, 13h

The current cohort of the Regional Network of Centres for Advanced Studies of Southeast Europe is focused on a culture of shared future in Southeast Europe – bringing forward narratives, evidence, and politics to replace a culture of hostility with a common vision of a joint future. The conversation with the Director of the European Solidarity Centre, Basil Kerski, will be valuable for acknowledging the need to cultivate a culture of productive oblivion and forward-looking narratives of our region.

About Basil Kerski

Cultural manager, exhibition curator, editor, essayist, publicist and expert on international politics. Director of the European Solidarity Centre in Gdansk, editor-in-chief of the German-Polish magazine DIALOG in Berlin.

Basil Kerski lives in Gdansk and Berlin and is the father of two sons. He was born into an Iraqi-Polish family in Gdansk in 1969 and lived in Iraq and the People’s Republic of Poland as a child. He fled Iraq with his parents in 1976.

Basil Kerski studied political science and Slavic studies at the Free University of Berlin. From 1991, he worked at the transatlantic Aspen Institute Berlin, the Research Institute of the German Council on Foreign Relations, the German Bundestag and the Social Science Research Centre Berlin.

Basil Kerski is the author and editor of over 40 German, Polish, English and Ukrainian books on historical, political and cultural topics. He is a regular commentator on European topics on Deutschlandfunk Kultur. Together with the Mayor of Gdansk, Paweł Adamowicz, Basil Kerski was the initiator of the English-language magazine “New Eastern Europe”.

He was a lecturer at the Otto Suhr Institute of the Free University of Berlin, at Humboldt University and Gdansk University. He has been visiting scholar at numerous European and American universities, including the Sorbonne in Paris, Georgetown University in Washington DC and Columbia University in New York.

Basil Kerski is a member of the board of the Polish PEN Club. In Brussels, he is responsible for the activities of the House of European History as Vice-Chairman of the Academic Advisory Board. He is also Chairman of the Academic Advisory Board of the Leipzig Forum for Freedom and Civil Rights, a member of the Board of Trustees of the Allianz Foundation, a member of the Advisory Board of the Berlin Wall Foundation and a member of the Advisory Board of the Foundation Places of German Democratic History.