Artists: Milijana Babić (Croatia), Ozana Brković (Montenegro), Enisa Cenaliaj (Albania), Nemanja Cvijanović (Croatia), Lana Čmajčanin (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Igor Grubić (Croatia), Biljana Garvanlieva (Macedonia), Gözde Ilkin (Turkey), Sebstjan Leban and Staš Keindienst (Slovenia), Kristina Leko(Croatia/Germany), Ivana Marjanović and Edurad Freudmann (Serbia/Austria), Alban Muja (Kosovo) and Damir Nikšić (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Rena Rädle and Vladan Jeremić (Serbia/Germany)

In Europe (and globally) we are currently facing not only an economical but also a moral crisis, which is actually a crisis of the political. On the European periphery, where the Cross Border Experience artists are coming from, is this crisis far more intensified than it is at the centre. It is obvious that politicians failed in their primary task (as defined already by Aristoteles), which is, on one hand, the distribution of wealth, and on the other hand the distribution of various powers. In a situation of unemployment, precarious work and growing masses of those with no means (aporoi) it is becoming more and more difficult to legitimize the social and political division for the small number of those who have means as well as various political powers (euporoi). The political is therefore changing its place. It is crossing the border from the centre and moving to the ‘shores’. The aporoi and with them also the arts are becoming political. The Cross Border Experience Art Programme will present some of the arti(vi)stic positions towards different aspects of social and political life in the Balkan region as well as in broader Europe. By doing so it will remind us how essential is to maintain the tension between art and politics – as politics of art and poetics of politics can’t come together without a mutual oppression of each other (cf. Jacques Rancière).
Cross Border Experience is a trans-state / trans-border / trans-national project that centres on the question as to how the idea of the European Union could be thought of as a trans-national political project. The project searches for the (political) subject of this utopian Europe beyond nationalism, ethnicism, and colonialism; is the precondition for this the EU citizenship or could also “the Others,” who are a part of Europe but not (yet) in the EU, claim political agency? It became clear that the European unification is a challenging and troubling process. On the one hand, we can speak about the real impossibility of European unification as long as we operate in categories such as “us” and “them”, “old” and “new”, “big” and “small”. At the same time, the EU proved not only to raise borders around itself, thus constructing a permanent “EU” and “the Other” territorial and symbolic divide, but such demarcation processes are also at work inside the EU: i.e. the former West vs. former East, as well as South vs. North.
The transnational and transdisciplinary Cross Border Experience conference is a come-together of socially and politically engaged activists, cultural workers, academics, theoreticians, artists and non-governmental, research, cultural and artistic organisations from all the EU and EU-to-be countries of the Balkans and from Turkey with an aim to address pertinent issues within the EU, the EU enlargement process and the situation of the candidate countries.
The Cross Border Experience art programme, taking place in the framework of the above mentioned conference, will present some of the current art positions from the Balkans and Turkey. Through these diverse activities the project seeks to add to the critical reflection of the current “European question,” as well as to encourage the long-term and fruitful networking and exchange processes among all of the involved participants, organisations, as well as the wider publics in the broader European space.

Curated by Katja Kobolt

Cross Border Experience

Škuc Gallery

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