photos by: Nemanja Stojanovic
From 12 to 14 June 2019, Nova Iskra (http://novaiskra.com), a pioneering creative hub from Belgrade (Serbia) presented a three-day internationalforum titled Creative Backslash: from precarious individuals to resilient organisations, at the Cultural Center of Belgrade and Fabrika event space. The conference brought together distinguished lecturers, artists, creative entrepreneurs, hub representatives, students, professors and policymakers from Turkey, Greece, Great Britain, Spain, Portugal, Slovenia, Slovakia, France and other European countries.
Through lectures, workshops and panel discussions, the program touched on some of the important issues such as the relation of creative work and mental health, ‘gig economy’, personal development, resilience of individuals and design of organizations, as well as areas of co-creation, learning through collaboration or look at blockchain as a collaboration tool.
click the image to see a short post-conference video
Dr Rachel Doern and Dr Aleksandar Brkić (both IMS & ICCE, Goldsmiths) gave keynote lectures, and other talks were delivered by the representatives of the hubs Collaborativa, Poligon or CRU Cowork, followed by the Slovak learning designer Brano Frk (Oppus), Dragana Jevtić from the Creative Mentorship program, Darija Medić from the Diplo Foundation or Marko Novaković, who is behind the award-winning social media project ‘The Client is Always Right’.
The forum was part of the Connect for Creativity project that aims to promote intercultural dialogue by linking creative hubs and communities into a networked common future. Connect for Creativity is an 18-month project led by the British Council, in partnership with–ATOLYE and Abdullah Gul University in Turkey, Bios in Greece and Nova Iskra in Serbia. The project is co-financed by the European Union and the Republic of Turkey through the Intercultural Dialogue Program, which is led by Yunus Emre Institute from Turkey and supported by the Ministry of Culture and Information of the Republic of Serbia.
photos by: Nemanja Stojanovic