"How Soon is Now?", an exercise to imagine our provisional futures, brought together 10 cultural practitioners from 10 organisations across the so called Western Balkans - or as group rather prefers Untitled region - for a speculative imagination of their context and practices ten years from now, in the year 2018.

With the assumption that all (individuals and organizations) invited have developed over the last decade specific skills and qualities that stretch the possibilities of their present situation, we went into a collective brainstorm where will we be when/if the transition in these societies is over.

Edi Muka at HSiN, LjubljanaParticipants HSiN, LjubljanaAt Julija, Ljubljana: Albert Heta, Yane Calovski, Nebojsa MilikicTomislav Medak and participants at HSiN, LjubljanaDiscussion at HSiN, Ljubljana: Tomislav Medak, Davor Miskovic, Peter Lang, Ana Vujanovic, Alenka Gregoric, Antonia Majaca

Some images from the workshop session in Skuc Gallery on 12 May 2008.

NoPF - audienceNoPF - monument: Site for David Maljkovic's work "Scenes for New Heritage"NoPF - museum-garage: Alenka Gregoric on provisional museumsNoPF - empty lot: Ana Dzokic and Marc Neelen (STEALTH.unlimited) on project "Open Futures, still here to be claimed"NoPF - parking: Insert from documentary "Pretty Dyana, gypsy recycling saga", by Boris Mitic[img_assist|nid=1033|title=NoPF - roof extensions|desc=Dubravka Sekuli

As a part of "Happening" (http://happening.nai.nl/en), a two months program at the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAi) in Rotterdam a full evening program on the topic of provisional future is set-up on Saturday 19 April 2008, at 20.00

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COME AND VISIT the Provisional Future. Join in and observe, participate, discuss, relax, take notes and look around. It’s like a real city!

No one thinks the future will be shiny and rosy, but what will the future cities look like? We have gone to some of the most significant places in the new Europe to see further into the future then many have yet been able to do!

Together we will walk into the unknown, the fantastic, the commonplace!

Monday, 12 May 2008, 15.00 – 19:00h at Škuc Gallery, Ljubljana

Imagine 10 years from now - year 2018. You are still a cultural practitioner, or maybe not. What are you busy with? Where are you located, does your organization still have the same address as in 2008? What is your network?  Where do your resources come from (what is your economy) and in what kind of cultural climate is your country/city? How local is your scene and with whom are you (not) cooperating? Are you busy with these issues at all?

A nation's account of it's own history as a socio-political tool for identity engineering. Comparative case studies of the revisions of history text books in countries derived from the Yugoslavian ex-federation and the European Union.

http://www.irational.org/vahida/history/

Radical Education discussing alternative education with Mehmet Behluli and Dren Maliqi of the School of Missing Identity and Rizoma / Prishtina, Kosovo

Radical Education (R.E.): What was the context in which the School of Missing Identity was initiated?

Mehmet Behluli (M.B.): We must look at the former Yugoslav territory in its cultural and also in its political meaning. As you know, Kosovo was very underdeveloped in that context and it was a society with a strong patriarchal way of thinking, as well as a closed one. In fact, only Kosovo was a big problem as regards integration into that Yugoslav society. Probably also because of the language, as our language is completely different from the other, Slavic, languages.

A call out to anyone here in Sarajevo who I met or didn't get to meet during the expedition, I'm here for 2 months to work on my project about language and folklore and so far have just been settling in, but am really keen to get in touch with the cultural life here in the city! If anyone can let me know about any events going on or otherwise would just like to meet me for coffee please let me know! I just arrived on my own and am not really sure where to begin...

get in touch! +38763184778 or susannekass (a) hotmail.com

Susanne

Order at http://www.veenmanpublishers.com/viewbook.php?bookID=309
LHE participants contact Skuc at galerija.skuc@guest.arnes.si to get a free copy of the book.
LHE Photobook Card: Lost Highway Expedition Photobook Card

LHExhibition - title: phot by Ana DzokicLHExhibition - vanja: photo by Ana DzokicLHExhibition - kasper: photo by Ana DzokicLHExhibition - stealth: photo by Ana DzokicLHExhibition - yane & hristina: photo by Ana DzokicLHExhibition - tanja: photo by Ana Dzokic[img_assist|nid=1006|title=LHExhibition - wietske|desc=photo by Ana Dzokic|link=popup|align=le

Lost Highway Expedition Photo Book description

Lost Highway Expedition Photo Book is a selection of captioned photographs contributed by participants in the Lost Highway Expedition, which took place in August 2006 through the Western Balkans including the countries of the former Yugoslavia and Albania. The photo book contains approximately 240 pages filled with full color images and captions and a brief introduction. The photo book has 27 sections, one for each day of the expedition; each day is represented with 8 pages.

Jelena, Bojan and DusanAlessandro and VahidaSkopje summitPeter, Claudia, Laia Under this months’ simmering heat, about 28 participants gathered in Skopje for the second-in-line of Building Lost Highway workshops. Aim of the meeting was to draft entries to the Lexicon of Provisional Future(s); entries that come from or are being inspired by the so called ‘Western Balkans’. Previous to the meeting, the participants’ five teams travelled for three or more days towards Skopje, experiencing different routes, stories and cities to support their lexicon entries.

The trips included a travel along the edges of Macedonia, a ferry rides from Italy to Montenegro and Croatia and further detouring to Macedonia, a north - south Serbia section, to all in the end converge at Skopje summit on 17 and 18 July 2007. The summit was co-organised by Press to Exit and held in the beautiful XVI century Kurshumli An (Leaded Caravanserai) where Centre for Contemporary Art of Skopje is housed. Deep shades of this heavy stone building saved us from overheat and sun blast with over 40C!

From 14-16 July five parallel mobile mini conferences will move from a starting point somewhere in the Western Balkans, to arrive to Skopje for a two days summit on 17-18 July. Investigating the locally emerging concepts and speculating their impact on a wider context, their input will be brought together at this summit. The 'moving conferences' are formed by teams of artists, architects and theoreticians who will be contributing to the Lexicon for the Future. The teams self-organise their trip and stay during their travel, which means they can decide to spiral around, make a de-tour, or stay in one city to make a dense set of meetings (>).

Radication Education site:

Moderna Galerija in Ljubljana is creating a series of events on global Radical Education
http://radical.temp.si
LHE/ELF and Radical Education will be part of NUROPE to be held in Ljubljana October 18-21
http://www.nurope.eu/ljubljana.html

Also, this discussion from the site is particularly interesting:
Between Radical Pedagogic and Participatory Art Practices
A Conversation on Education as a Radical Social (and Aesthetic) Practice with Marta Gregorčič, Bojana Piškur, Marjetica Potrč and Dmitry Vilensky
Adela Železnik
http://radical.temp.si/node/80

The following interview has been published in “Maska” Performing Arts Journal, Winter 2007

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/09/world/europe/09albania.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

For One Visit, Bush Will Feel Pro-U.S. Glow

Hektor Pustina/Associated Press
Workers in Tirana, Albania, prepared the area in front of the “Pyramid,” a cultural center, for President Bush’s visit Sunday.

By CRAIG S. SMITH
Published: June 9, 2007
TIRANA, Albania, June 8 — The highlight of President Bush’s European tour may well be his visit on Sunday to this tiny country, one of the few places left where he can bask in unabashed pro-American sentiment without a protester in sight.

Visar Kryeziu/Associated Press

from Heinrich Boll Foundation website:
http://www.boell.de/en/nav/275.html

European Green Party/EFGPaisbl
4th COUNCIL MEETING
Helsinki, 5-7th May 2006

Adopted resolution

A clear EU Perspective for South-Eastern Europe

The year 2006 is and will be crucial for the future of the South-Eastern European countries:

- the talks on the future status of Kosovo have started,
- the future of Montenegro will be decided in a referendum in May,
- accession negotiations will start after the end of the screening process for Croatia (and maybe also for
Macedonia) and
- talks on the Stabilisation and Association Agreement for Bosnia and Herzegovina were opened in January.

European Investment Bank: Urgent Investments for Basic Infrastructure in FRY, 2000
[last page has a map of the list of projects]

Between 1977 and 1990 the Bank awarded 15 loans to SFRY for infrastructural improvements. Eight loans were for the highway, totalling $171,998,502.60 euro. Outstanding arrears of the loans stood in 2000 at 207.3 million. (see p. 8)

War damages were concentrated on transport infrastructure, and estimated at 1 billion euro (however this is uncertain) (p. 12)

Advice: rehabilitation projects should take precedence over new construction (p. 13)

Main road network of 6,500 km including 420 km of full motorway and 220 km of morway with one lane

Sarajevo, VrbanjaFor a number of years STEALTH has been investigating how the issue of non-regulation/non-control affects the way cities develop and are being used.

Following our project in the city of Belgrade (‘Wild City’, on the multitude of anonymous and non-authorised interventions contributing to this during the 1990s highly non-planned, but ‘collectively authored’ city), in 2006 we started investigating urban changes in 9 major cities in the Western Balkan region (Ljubljana, Zagreb, Novi Sad, Belgrade, Skopje, Prishtina, Tirana, Podgorica, Sarajevo) along the Lost Highway Expedition.

Manholes presentation

output Skopje
Photos and frottages from manholes'lids, which were made during the trip of the LHE through the Western Balkan in August 2006.

They represent the craft of casting, the symbols of the town (heraldic), place or region of production or the type of network with codification.

The lids of the underground network show a forgotten business and story of cooperation in the formal republics of Yugoslavia., either they show the pure art of manholes'lids design.

Call for Photographs from the Expedition for the Photo book

Let's make a photo book of the Lost Highway Expedition. The book will be the second in the series of LHE publications following the LHE Reader and it will be released in October 2007. The photo book will contain approximately 240 pages filled with full color images and captions and a brief introduction. The photo book will be organized as a calendar; day-by-day from the trip, and so will have 26 sections, each represented with 8 pages.