SarajevoI had a very productive meeting with Aida Kaleder, cultural manager from the Mediacenter in Sarajevo this morning, who was recommended by Asja Hafner. Aida and Asja had some great points, which I would like to share with you. The following email is too long, it contains the discussion update on the program in Sarajevo and a more detailed plan of action for the programming. The issues we discussed regard the city of Sarajevo, but they may be relevant for other cities involved in the LHE:

Aida stressed the importance of the discussion about the role of public space and public institutions in production of culture. She argued that there is an urgent need for a massive initiative that would animate public space in Sarajevo. Since the state funded cultural institutions 'collapsed' during and after the recent war, the bottom-up initiatives and NGOs have taken on the main role in the local cultural sphere. This is visible through a wide range of 'experimental islands' - as she called them - very
successful projects, artists and filmmakers from Bosnia reaching international attention in the recent 10 years. These were often
self-initiated or supported by some major funding organization like ProHelvetia or Soros Foundation. However, after some of these major funding sources shifted their attention to other regions or have closed their preliminary cultural budgets, a huge gap emerged in the cultural sector.

In this context, Aida posed a question of how one could awake the 'dead' or archaic public institutions and make them serve the public again, yet in a novel way. She argued for more lobbying of independent cultural sector that would act within the state umbrella. This could happen in three possible ways:
1.. Creation of a state fund for independent cultural sector
2.. Hybridization of informal initiatives with state institutions, i.e. sharing of space and infrastructure with cultural state institutions, which would require scenario planning and programatical coordination
3.. Combination of 1.+2.

I think that the option nr. 2. is the most realizable one at this point, and perhaps the most relevant for our expedition. The discussion about the cultural production in public space also seemed most pertinent for Asja Hafner and Dunja Blazevic (Pro.ba and SCCA). Sarajevo lacks cultural bottom-up initiatives. Such activities are mainly to be found in small activist groups or citizens' initiatives, who protest against the current political paralysis, but even they are very small and they hardly manage to motivate larger crowds. Since the country is now overwhelmed by the wild capitalism and increasing privatization, the shrinking of the public space represents an urgent concern. What remains preliminarily un-privatized is the city's infrastructure (i.e. roads, bridges, parks, etc), which could be animated by LHE.

What this means for the procedure for the programming of the LHE in Sarajevo is following:

1.. The overall agenda for the program in Sarajevo will be to generate the discussion about the current cultural production in public space and the role of culture and cultural institutions in the future. The themes of the 'city-tours' in Sarajevo will be developed in the next 3 weeks and posted
online. The themes we have so far are: 'Deconstruction of Monuments',
"Continuation of War in Time of Peace: Spatial Mediation of Nationalism," "Need for Radical Space" and "Organized Chaos in Politics and Space."

2.. Local LHE participants, and architects in particular, will be asked to investigate and identify those remaining public spaces in Sarajevo that could be animated by independent culture.

3.. Local LHE experts, who will lead "city-tours", will be asked to temporarily 'occupy' these spaces with their gusts in an improvised way.
This means that some these walking lectures will be held on bridges, parks, bars, restaurants, private gardens and libraries, etc. Participants will be asked to bring their own drink, chair or other needed equipment. The advantage of such temporary and guerilla-like occupation of public space is that we do not need any organization, nor permit. Everything will be scheduled online.

4.. However not all 'city tours' will be held in this picnic-like format, we will also use more formal structures to be held in spaces provided by Pro.ba and SCCA, depending on the need of the 'city tour'.

5.. Depending on the tour, visiting LHE participants will be asked to present their projects or projects they know about that successfully challenged this problematic in other cities. They can register themselves
prior to the 'tour' on our web site. In this way we will have a fixed number of people coming, whereas the number may shrink or expand. The presentations will be short (10-15min.) and will be also scheduled online. These presentations should teach local institutions about possibilities of alternative use of public space and encourage them to rethink their current
modes of action.

6.. For the constellation of each city-tour we hope to have the following structure: a local expert(s) as tour-guide(s), local participants from cultural sector, representatives of institutions active in cultural sector and politics, journalists and other media support, visiting LHE
participants.

7.. Since lack of local interest often represents a problem, the guides of the 'city-tours', as well as our local partners will be asked to motivate at least 5 people, who will come for sure.

8.. Final tour and conclusion of the LHE will be organized as a picnic with lamb grill and baklava in the shade of the apple trees on the Pyramid in Visoko, formally known as the mountain Visocica.

Finally, the goal of the LHE is the initiation of a process to change the
self-consciousness of citizens and institutions in their approach to
cultural production in public space. As such, we hope to develop questions
to be further discussed in the city and the forthcoming projects. The temporary occupation of public space may teach local public institutions alternative working approaches, whereas we hope to get physical remains of these actions such as squatted 'objects' that could initiate emergence of new collaborative spaces for cultural production targeted at young people or periodic events with similar agenda. From the constructed scenarios and unexpected problems emerging during our events, we hope to learn lessons that would be relevant to both of the next two years of the Europe Lost and Found.

Ok, this is too long, but may be a supportive guide for other cities in LHE.
Please feel free to critique or comment to this.

Best regards,

Azra