Open call: WCSCD Educational program 2025/2026
Drawing by Stefan Ilic
Start of Open call: January 7th 2025
Deadline for submission: February 28th 2025
We will reach shortlisted candidates for interview by March 10th 2025
Final program participants list to be announced: March 20th 2025
Program starts: end of August 2025 (final date to be confirmed after participant selection).
Duration of program: eight months
on site: three months total (end of august to end of October 2025 + April 2026). In between onsite sessions there will be online workshops and gatherings twice a month from November 2025 until March 2026.
The WCSCD educational program is open to artists, curators, and cultural workers seeking to develop different working methodologies that respond to urgent challenges facing cultural work today. Through collective learning and rooted in our shared realities we will explore and practice different methodologies, embracing failure as an essential part of the learning process. Our learning gestures are aimed towards deconstructing how, where and with whom knowledge is produced and made public, and who we cite in the process.
The 2025/2026 educational project continues WCSCD’s self-reflective development of instituting through collective thinking and practicing. Together, we explore possible institutional models that transcend traditional binaries: rural/urban, culture/nature, and woman/man.
This work builds on the foundations laid by previous program participants, creating bridges between different generations' methodologies and knowledge. While previous program participants looked at historical examples of artistic practices in rural areas of the Balkans, the focus of the upcoming program will be researching situated practices of instituting in the region that are still active and that offer different propositions on relationality and ways of instituting.
Special emphasis throughout the program will be given to exploring ways of practicing in times of scarcity and ways to continue situated work in a meaningful way. We will question and practice responses to questions such as: What kind of exhibitions do we really need? Can we re-define the purpose of the exhibition? Can we practice the exhibition as a learning opportunity? How can we reinstall learning in exhibition making as Chus Martinez asks?
The program is conceived by Biljana Ciric, founder of WCSCD, in collaboration with curator Laura Rositani, who participated in a previous WCSCD program. It is locally coordinated and situated in collaboration with The Shock Cooperative and S.K.U.P.
The program mentors are: Chus Martinez (director of the Art Institute at the FHNW Academy of Art and Design, Basel, where she also runs the Institute’s exhibition space Der Tank), Nina Montmann (Professor of Art Theory at the University of Cologne, curator, writer, and PI at the Global South Study Center (GSSC) at the University of Cologne), Sergio Montero Bravo (architect, designer, researcher, and member of Inland), Lara Khaldi (director of de Appel), Toby Upson (writer), Robida (collective that works at the intersection of written and spoken words – with Robida Magazine and Radio Robida – and spatial practices developed in relation to the village of Topolò/Topolove, where the collective is based).
This edition of the program will be situated in Novi Sad city, 30min by train from Belgrade.
WCSCD’s educational program was established in 2018 and is mostly situated in Belgrade. It is an international program for artists and curators. Having both curatorial and artistic positions in close proximity is very important for WCSCD. In many places that lack an art infrastructure, these positions constantly merge, complement and support one another. The WCSCD educational program has been a testing ground for creating a collective learning site and a space to think about how to institute differently. The central place of the educational program in WCSCD’s activities has been vital to the institution. The program has helped guide us, creating a space to collectively consider many practical questions as well as to think about our future.
Practical information
No prior degree in art or art history are required in order to apply.
The program is organized through different sequences. Workshops are held four days a week with mentors and WCSCD colleagues. Selected participants will be provided reading material and instructions for preparation prior to the program.
The course fee is charged according to your country income (you need to be a passport holder of that country).
For lower income countries, the 2025/2026 program fee is 450 euros.
For lower and middle-income countries, the 2025/2026 program fee is 750 euros.
For middle and upper-income countries, the 2025/2026 program fee is 1300 euros.
For high income countries the program fee is 2200 euros
Please use this reference for your country income:
Payments should be made in advance and in instalments if needed. We encourage individuals and institutions to support cultural workers’ education through supporting their participation in the program.
About your stay:
The program fee doesn’t include cost of travel to Serbia and Novi Sad, or research trip costs.
For the two-month stay in 2025, seven days of the program will take place in the countryside on land that WCSCD has taken custodianship of, while the rest of the program will be in Novi Sad.
Food and accommodation in the village will be covered by WCSCD, while participants will need to cover accommodation costs in Novi Sad as well as costs of the research trip. The research trip will be to Topolo Robia for a duration of four days in 2025.
For the one month stay in 2026 the same conditions apply.
How to apply
Applications should include the following items as a single Word or PDF document:
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a letter of interest stating your reasons for applying to the program
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your biography and CV
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portfolio
Send your application by email to what.could.curating.do [at] gmail.com with the subject line: Educational program -WCSCD 2025/26