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CRIC : : Metamorphosis

CRIK – Festival for Critical Culture, this year, as every year before, was meant to be a grand celebration of ideas, of togetherness, of connection, of exchange. This year, which we might have called a jubilee, we are not celebrating. We are not marking it with festive spirit, but with vigilance and a sense of urgency. The questions we wish to pose in place of celebration are: What does it mean to maintain a platform for critical culture in a time when the very foundations of public life and space are crumbling? What does it mean to speak of transformation when that transformation has been appropriated by systems that suffocate and kill every gesture of dissent, protest, resistance? What are the tools of transformation when societies—and with them, the subversive, critical actors in culture and art, those belonging to the independent/non-institutional cultural scene, locally and globally—are structurally collapsing under the weight of populism, precarity, and eroded democratic norms?

CRIK 2025 is not a celebration of continuity – it is an act of perseverance. As a project of Kontrapunkt, the festival remains devoted to criticality as a political act, not a rhetorical posture. CRIK is a glitch in the system – an interruption in the programmed flow of spectacle, commodification, and silence. This year, under the theme “Metamorphosis/Transformation,” we do not ask what culture can do, but what culture must do in conditions of systemic stagnation, institutional erosion, and the normalization of inequality.

Metamorphosis means standing against inherited forms that no longer serve us. It is not adaptation – it is reconstitution. In a time when even change is curated, CRIK calls for a different kind of transformation: one rooted in solidarity, in the radical rethinking of collective life, and in the refusal to normalize exclusivity, censorship, and cultural amnesia.

This festival is not merely a space for gathering/celebration, exaltation and affirmation, but also for mourning/facing sorrow, for confronting failures, resignation, the grotesque face of social abysses – mourning and facing the losses of public space, the erosion of democratic infrastructures, the betrayal of emancipatory promises. But grief, here, is not the final destination. For us, it is a foundation for further courageous action. This year, we invoke transformation, metamorphosis, because we are not ready to accept the inertia with which the world silently moves toward blindly embracing acute and devastating political, economic, and cultural dehumanizations as the only possibilities. We invoke transformation as radical resistance and as a turbine for redirecting the course toward paths we see as vital for creating a strong framework and societies of belonging and solidarity: intergenerational dialogue, shared ownership of cultural memory, and practices that renew the connective tissue of our fragmented communities.

CRIK 2025 is a call to act – not alone, but together! Not for visibility, but for vision! Not for celebration, but for cultural defiance!

To all who continue to believe in the cultural and artistic path as tools for social change, confrontation, and response, in theory as an instrument of resistance, and in community as a voice for reimagining – this edition is dedicated to you!

There is nothing to celebrate.
And yet, we are still here.
Which, too, is another act of metamorphosis.
And we call on you to walk the path of continuous transformation.
This is a time for transformation!

Editorial Team:
Iskra Geshoska, Artan Sadiku, Tijana Ana Spasovska, Petar Milat

Long-standing Partner Organizations:
Multimedia Institute (MaMa) Zagreb, Kuda.org Novi Sad, Jadro – Association of the Independent Cultural Scene, KSP Center – Jadro, Okno, design studio KOMA, Kiosk Belgrade, Kulturtreger Zagreb, Press to Exit, project space, Museum of Contemporary Art

Collaborative Team:
Aleksandra Bubevska, Natasha Geleva, Vladimir Jankovski

PROGRAM

June 2, 2025
20:00
KSP Center Jadro
Gerald Raunig – Making Multiplicity
Concert and book promotion

June 3, 2025
13:00
Social Space Dunja
In Rhythm with Theory
Gerald Raunig – open discussion and reflections
In conversation with Artan Sadiku

June 4, 2025
16:00
Social Center Dunja
Diedrich Diederichsen
How to Write About Subculture? – Workshop

June 5, 2025
18:00 – 20:00
KSP Center Jadro
Book promotion by Diedrich Diederichsen
Aesthetics of Pop Culture
In conversation with Petar Milat

June 23, 2025
20:00
KSP Center Jadro
Book promotion by Slavco Dimitrov
Anarchic Bodies: Corporeal Materialism, Affects and the Political
In conversation with Jelisaveta Blagojević and Ljubomir Frčkoski

June 25, 2025
20:00
Museum of Contemporary Art
Opening of the exhibition
"Graceland Paradox: Navigating Uncertainty"

June 26, 2025
16:00
Museum of Contemporary Art
Workshop on environment, humanism and contemporary art
Workshop leaders: Bilal Yilmaz, Fani Boudouroglou, Rania Emmanouilidou, Evangelia Psoma.

The autumn program of CRIK 2025 will continue in September/October.

CRIC - Festival for Critical Culture is financially supported by the Culture and Creativity for the Western Balkans, Goethe Institute, the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of North Macedonia and the Creative Europe program of the European Commission, financed by the European Union.
The “Culture and Creativity for the Western Balkans” (CC4WBs) is a project funded by the European Union that aims to foster dialogue in the Western Balkans by enhancing the cultural and creative sectors for increased socio-economic impact.