Celebrating Resilience and Solidarity

Culminating event date: June  23, 2024

Location: Gornja Gorevnica

 

Participants: Asida Butba, Anna Ilchenko, Andrey Parshikov (curators of WCSCD 2023/24 educational program), Bojana Popović, Luigi Coppola, Petra Pavleka, and Gornja Gorevnica community members.

 

Coordinators: Sofija Bošković and Cheng Xiangmin.

 

Organized by WCSCD and the local community of Gornja Gorevnica.

 

Project supported by the Italian Cultural Institute and the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Serbia.

 

WCSCD 2023/24 program participants, together with mentor and artist Luigi Coppola, artist Bojana Popović, and cultural worker Petra Pavleka, invite you to a community action in the village of Gornja Gorevnica to celebrate and foster communal life, resilience, and local knowledge in agricultural production.

Since 2023, WCSCD has established a pedagogical center in Gornja Gorevnica and initiated various encounters and meetings to engage with local communities. Through this engagement, we are encouraged to think and practice culture beyond the dualisms of rural/urban, culture/nature, and man/woman, embracing more entangled and interdependent ways of being. This effort is also our attempt to decentralize the production of knowledge and culture as city dwellers.

 

The series of upcoming gatherings on June 23 aims to rethink the production of culture and knowledge through actions in rural areas. This approach seeks to explore different solutions for building more resilient communities.

 

During the culminating event day, we invite you to experience a number of artistic projects presented in Gornja Gorevnica. These projects represent long-term commitments to rethinking ways of working with communities and fostering a more resilient society.

 

What you can experience during the culminating days:

 

Italian artist and activist Luigi Coppola has been collaborating with village families for over six months to launch the long-term project Unity as Strength through Moba Production. This initiative draws inspiration from the ritualistic aspects of collective labor, focusing on the gathering and transformation of local fruits.

 

In our capitalist and extractivist society, individualism is often promoted, driven by the myth of relentless productivity. But is this truly the only viable model of production? Should we reject collaborative and relational models, favoring solitude and sacrifice over collective effort?

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In rural areas, there remains a poetic sense of working together—songs and celebrations tied to the harvest and its transformation. We invite you to rekindle this spirit through acts that blend labor and festivity. As the climate crisis exacerbates the already challenging economic conditions for those who choose to farm, coming together becomes even more crucial.

 

The Moba Production, with artistic input from Luigi Coppola, will feature two main components. The first includes workshops that share practical knowledge on fruit processing, culminating in a communal dinner prepared by the village, followed by celebratory music and dance. On June 23, as part of Moba Production, a Knowledge Assembly will be held, focusing on climate change and strategies for building strong community support structures. This event will foster vital discussions among community members.

 

Bojana Popović, a young artist residing in the village, has crafted a performative walk. This walk offers a unique mapping of Gornja Gorevnica from a feminist perspective, blending walking and storytelling into a rich, experiential tapestry. Through this journey, participants will uncover marginalized histories, such as the ancient tree's legacy, poignant love stories, and other narratives that reside outside the mainstream historical discourse.

 

Another important aspect of Celebrating Resilience and Solidarity is food. The stomach holds profound significance for us, serving as a central element in our system. Esteemed artists and scholars, such as Vanessa Machado de Oliveira and Trinh T. Minh-ha, state that the stomach is the core through which neural changes and chemistry occur, influencing the heart's will and directly affecting the mind. This concept proposes an engagement with embodied knowledge that transcends mere visual experience.

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In collaboration with the women of the Gornja Gorevnica village, we have gathered ancestral recipes to craft a menu for our guests, offering a rich, sensory connection to our shared heritage and traditions.

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Further exploring the practices of food-making, Petra Pavleka, a distinguished cultural worker from Zagreb, will be sharing traditional bread-making techniques. This workshop, in collaboration with a historic, functioning mill within the village, will provide a unique blend of cultural heritage and artisanal craftsmanship.

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June 23, culminating event schedule:

 

12:30 pm – arrival to Gornja Gorevnica

1:00 pm – refreshments/ snacks and welcoming ritual 

1:30 - 4:00 pm –  launch of Moba Production through series of workshops with community elders and bread-making workshop with Petra Pavleka

4:00 - 5:30 pm –  a performative walk with young artist Bojana Popović around Gornja Gorevnica

5:30 - 6:30 pm – dinner

6:30 - 8:00 pm – Knowledge assembly moderated by Luigi Coppola

8:30 pm – departure from Gornja Gorevnica to Belgrade

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Admission fee

 

This public, family-friendly event embraces intergenerational learning and joy. All workshops are free of charge. Refreshments and snacks upon arrival, along with a dinner, are available for 1,500 dinars per person (coffee and soft drinks included). Children up to 12 years old can attend for half price at 750 dinars, and children under 5 years old attend for free.

 

Registration is essential. Please email us at what.could.curating.do@gmail.com or message us on Instagram @whatcouldshouldcuratingdo to secure your spot.

 

How to get to Gornja Gorevnica village:

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• You can arrive by car on your own. Free parking is available. Instructions on how to reach us will be sent after registration.

• You can also hop on an organized bus from Belgrade on the morning of June 23rd, returning the same evening. The round trip price is 1,500 dinars. Limited capacity; pre-booking is essential.

• If you have camping gear and want to stay a few days with us, we have free space for your tent. Please contact us to arrange this.

 

Bios of WCSCD program contributors:

 

Petra Pavleka is project manager of the Community seed bank and food program at ZMAG As

a student, this landscape architect traveled Europe with Erasmus and Grundtvig projects in

search for green knowledge and good sustainable practices. She learned her trade by

collaborating with several architectural firms, and in recent years has been intensely interested

in the production of her own food and the growing potential of public areas. Since 2020, she has been a member of ZMAG’s Social Seed Bank, and currently works at ZMAG as the project

manager of that project and the manager of the food program.

 

Luigi Coppola is an Italian artist and activist, member of Casa Della Agricultura, a community founded in the south of Italy in Castiglione d'Otranto, which aims to revive abandoned land and repopulate villages, generate an economy based on solidarity, and strengthening community ties through new cultural, social and economic models of common life based on agriculture.

 

About WCSCD:

The WCSCD is a civic association, established in 2018, and its fundamental activity is an educational program for artists, curators, researchers and cultural workers with focus on different ways of learning and working in the arts. In 2022 WCSCD started working within the rural area in Sumadija (Serbia) and taking custodianship of the piece of land with long-term commitment.

 

For all further information on this and all WCSCD projects, please contact:

 

Biljana Ćirić

what.could.curating.do@gmail.com

 

https://www.wcscd.com/