Dear friends and colleagues,

Our early bird-deadline to apply for our 2020 season is January 1st.

This October we concluded our programs's first season. In total we hosted eight international and one local artist. The projects spanned a wide range; from socio-political and ecological artistic research, to drawing, painting, sculpture, photography and film practices. You can find out more about the projects on our website. 

We also welcomed short-term visitors, writers and academics, went on countless field trips, and met new local partners engaging in impressive work connected to the region. We grew most of our food in our vegetable garden, welcomed five puppies into the world and saw Bileća lake's water-level slowly lower; in the end completely revealing the underlying ruins of the flooded villages.

To share a bit more about our last two residents: artist and landscape architect Jennifer Dowdell (USA) and filmmaker Stefan Pavlovic (NL). 
 

Jennifer spent her residency period intensely investigating the region's ecosystems and embedded histories, tracing the spirit-of-place or ‘genus loci’ that connects the natural world with the community. She examined the Trebišnjica River basin and its globally significant karst geology and associated ecosystems, while also cataloging oral histories of local villagers impacted by the construction of the hydroelectric dam that formed Lake Bileća five decades ago. She integrated her findings (over the course of 8 weeks) into a series of maps & sketches, watercolor paintings, and photo documentation, to begin to form a story that reflects these interdependent and interconnected stories that animate the landscape.

We are also very pleased to have established a partnership with speleologist Brian Lewarne and the Devon Karst Society (Director of the Proteus Project in the Trebišnjica River Basin, Eastern Hercegovina), who collaborated with Jennifer to learn more about the history of scientists and engineers who have documented and stewarded the Trebišnjica catchment’s many ponors (sinkholes), vrelos (springs), and estevelles, where the river emerges and sinks underground again. Brian has shared invaluable insights into the need for continued conservation and establishment of a protected area where the Proteus, an endemic aquatic cave salamander, is known to persist – despite many man-made impacts.

Stefan spent his residency period working on his film Looking for Horses, a mid-length documentary/essay film about a friendship between himself and Zdravko. Through the film, Stefan explores the obstacles of communication – in light of his personal struggles with stuttering and inability to speak Serbo-Croation (his "native" language), and moreover Zdravko's loss of hearing. In the arena of establishing a friendship which simultaneously doubles the relationship between filmmaker and film-subject, Looking for Horses attempts to engage their impossible yet possible communication cinematically. 

Stefan's previous short film When the Dragon Came (20 min. 2018), was just recently awarded "Most Intriguing Film" at the Szczecin Film Festival-SEFF'19, on 28th October 2019. His film Looking for Horses, currently in post-production, was nominated among ten other for the AHK End Work award for best graduate and postgraduate project in Amsterdam.

He will present this work in progress on the 8th of November at 2 p.m., at the Eastern Neighbours Film Festival in The Hague (NL), in the section New Pro Formula.

The early bird deadline for our new season is January 1st 2020. You can visit our application guidelines and read more about us.

We are a residence program for artistic research and art production. We host artists for a duration between 4 and 12 weeks, offer studio space and production guidance, have an ever expanding network of local partners, organize presentations and uphold a sustainable and communal, inclusive and empowering way of living and working.

We would like to ask you again to support us. Any donation helps, as well as sharing our project with your networks of peers and colleagues, and potential donors. You can make a donation by sending us an e-mail to which we will supply you with our bank details or Paypal information.


You can also follow us on Facebook or Instagram.


Thank you,

KAMEN