INtoOUTREACH
INtoOUTREACH - Re-enactment of the unknown
Program establishing a new forms of collaboration in production and distribution of culture
The basis of the program INtoOUTREACH is the coproduction of a series of exhibitions, discussions, lectures and presentations designated to incite the recapitulation, distribution and decentralization of knowledge and experiences FROM a core group of organisations in the field of visual arts, architecture, activism and related cultural production, TO a new audience and establishment of new forms of cooperation with new partner organizations. The restaging of prominent projects and related experiences from the last decade, should enable a sort of a two-way methodological exchange with a vast network of yet unreached local cultural organisations or settings. (scroll down for the re-proposed projects)
Organizations which have initiated the program are: Cultural center REX, Belgrade (http://www.rex.b92.net/), STEALTH.unlimited, Belgrade/Rotterdam (http://www.stealth.ultd.net/stealth/), Press to Exit, Skopje (http://www.presstoexit.org.mk/) and Centar za nove medije_kuda.org Novi Sad. Those organizations have years long experience in local, regional and international cooperation and coproductions. Partner organizations from the smaller cities, which have showed interest in participating in the program are: Public Library in Bor, Resource center Leskovac, NGO Urban In from Novi Pazar, Dragacevo women cooperative "Rajka Borojevic" Donji Dubac, Cultural Center Požega, Cultural Center Pančevo, itd.
The four initiating organisations constitute this program therefore as a collaborative platform to actively engage a range of organisations - specifically from the regional cultural scenes throughout post-Yugoslavia - and protagonists beyond their present (regular) scope of activities, to additionally sustain conditions for further re-distribution of knowledge, experiences and cultural practices into yet uncontested grounds.
For the INtoOUTREACH, the deliberate choice has been made to re-enact a set of projects (meaning their well tested contents and concepts) in new surroundings (new both time wise and infrastructure wise). Being aware of recent tendencies in cultural production (hyper-production, activities growth related to the influx of funds to the production stream, etc.), we believe this program brings a novel approach to re-setting and re-contextualising.
Displacing a set of key experiences and projects – selected for their potential good impact - into yet unchallenged cultural contexts, incites the creation of new methods, models of outreach and modes of collaboration to proliferate valuable resources developed by the NGO cultural scene. But the program acts not as a mere (re)installation of existing materials and knowledge’s but as a two-fold innovation: in their adaptation to meet the demands and challenges and reality of the locally found cultural understanding, production conditions and capacities, the project initiators will co-produce new knowledge with their hosts, which are there to judge the offered content by their own standard: thus it is in fact “the re-enactment of unknown”.
INtoOUTREACH draws for this on re-enactment of a pinpointed selection of projects/activities from the period 2000-2009 that can be considered forerunning in their respective fields and that have the capacity to significantly impact the cultural sphere, equally today as they were in the time of their initial production. The program acts upon the context of the recent (one decade ago) emerged non-institutional practices in the post-Yugoslav societies of Serbia, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro – a context that can be considered a vital ground of experience and experimentation for impact and outreach of many innovative cultural and artistic productions. These experiences now face a challenge to be brought to a next level and impact - not only through institutional (re)production, but also through a conceptual reinvention and confirmation out of their former contexts and sites of initiation. It is through the very challenge of re-setting them in time and space, in a period and environment that contrasts in setting and circumstances, that these activities reach a new and pioneering level of engagement.
Re-proposed projects within the program are: