TWO PRIZES OF THE PRAGUE QUADRENNIAL 2023 (FOR THE NATIONAL AND FOR THE STUDENT SECTION)

Serbia participates with projects selected at public competitions, exhibitions in the national and student categories with the common theme “On Tenderness, Dreams and Responsibility”, which are based on a nationalized approach and thematic processing of the exhibition. the exhibition dedicated to exceptional people and/or their works, while the student exhibition deals with exceptional stories about the special spaces of young people, the places they think and dream about. The specificity of both works is reflected in the establishment of an active relationship with the place of exhibition – the Prague market, in a substantive, significant and spatial context.

National selection: the “Moonshine Piano” exhibition, curated by architect and stage designer Miodrag Kuč, can also be understood as a performance installation aimed at creating a collective narrative.

https://pq.cz/pq-2023-info/projects-2023/exhibition-of-countries-and-regions/serbia-moonshine-piano/

National section exhibition represents a multi-layered ‘storytelling machine’, in which prominent representatives of contemporary performance space and scene design in the theatre (and non-theatre) world in Serbia are involved in the development of new narratives based on specific artefacts. The selected artefacts, combined with the thematic framework and the analytical-forensic component of storytelling, create a dynamic archive that serves the further elaboration of dramatic texts, political education programmes and the promotion of socially engaged practices.

The Moonshine Piano, the central element of the space, is a kind of hybrid ‘communication/dialogue prop’, created from a discarded piano and a micro-distillery, whose primary function is to create a framework for fictional storytelling between hosts, guests and audience. Guest participants (artists and groups) are invited to bring a specific artefact (not necessarily related to their profession) which, together with the distillate of the day, will serve as a ‘dialogue starter’. Different conversations and performative practices can develop around this artefact: theatre improvisations, simulations of public debates, parliamentary sessions of non-existent ministries, environmental discussions or intimate concerts. The scent of the day is a product of the distillation process and is understood as an important element of scene design, building the scene together with the guests and their artefacts. The audience will have the opportunity to observe the process of creating a narrative in the host-guest relationship, but will also have the opportunity to join the dialogue and add their own speculative narrative. At the end of the process, the audience will be invited to participate in the creation of a collective visual image and to add to the material for the archive. The programme of the pavilion is conceived as a coherent, interconnected and continuous set of different (critical) views on the future of theatre, but above all on the problems of a depoliticised public, professional conformity and self-exploitation. The results of the collectively produced narratives are carefully stored in a dynamic archive. It consists of written protocols, mental maps, critical maps/diagrams, sound/video files, composed music pieces or written poems. They are stored in a pre-prepared system of clipboards and media library where the audience can see the rough results of the previous day.

CURATOR: Miodrag Kuč

CREATIVE TEAM

Comissioners: Biljana Jotić and Tatjana Dadić

Guest participants (artists and groups): LP Duo, Selena Orb, Milica Vučković, Agelast, Ministry of Space, Mirko Radonjić and Andreja Rondović, Novo kulturno naselje and Marka Žvaka

Production Management: Andrija Dinulović, Janko Dimitrijević and Zoja Erdeljan

Technical Team: Vladimir Savić, Igor Ljubić, Andreja Georgievski, Nađa Vukorep, Darko Sekulić, Nina Bogdanović, Ivan Nikolovski and Isidora Pokrajac

ORGANISATION: Museum of Applied Arts; Scen – Center for Scene Design, Architecture and Technology – Oistat Centre for Serbia

https://pq.cz/pq-2023-info/projects-2023/student-exhibition-pq/serbia-daydreaming/

Lend me your dream
And embrace him with your body,
Instead of your mind.

The student section is represented by an interdisciplinary team of students from different faculties in Serbia. Through a complex process of collaborative creation, the students have designed a work in the field of scene design that deals with the theme of dreams and tenderness, connecting the space of dreams with the space of reality. Throughout the duration of the Prague Quadrennial, the process of constructing the work will take place continuously through the research and mapping of the space of dreams, which will gradually be explored, translated and materialised in the real exhibition space.

The Student Section of Serbia presents a performative installation that deals with the transaction of dreams. These dreams are conveyed and then discovered, gently and with care, in the real space of Prague’s Holešovice market, where the student exhibition is located. Both the real space and the space of dreams are recognised as structures full of potential, inscribed with infinite possibilities of rare events and experiences that call for recognition and exploration. The nature of the dream is changed by this work – from something born out of stillness, in the mind, to a cause for physical action.The participants in the exchange are visitors – dreamers who share, lend and entrust their dreams to the students – daydreamers who then dream these dreams awake in the space of the marketplace. The daydreamers aim to initiate this process of exchange by researching and mapping the space of dreams, which will gradually be recognised, translated and materialised in real space in an open, gentle and honest process. The space of the pavilion therefore changes its configuration through three situations: a Space for sharing dreams, a Space for exploring dreams and a Space for keeping dreams.The Space for sharing dreams is a place for visitors to share their story – the dream lent to daydreamers. Through this exchange, the dream becomes the initiator of the daydreamer’s intuitive and sensory exploration of the space of reality, which begins only within the Space for dream exploration, within the Pavilion, but ends elsewhere. Through the daydreamer’s intervention in reality, the dream becomes tangible within the space of the market, its location marked and mapped. In the dream storage room, the visitor-dreamer has the opportunity to find the location of his or her own or any other borrowed dream, now stored in the daydreamer’s atlas, and to set out to find it in the real space of the marketplace.This process is cyclical in nature, shifting between internal and external, variable and constantly evolving, thus always rare and never completed. Through their work, the students/daydreamers explore whether bringing dreams into reality might make them more substantial, pointing to a much-needed space for closeness and togetherness opened up by a vigilant and committed exchange.

CURATORIAL TEAM:

Aleksandra Pešterac, Daniela Dimitrovska, Pavle Dinulović, Pavle Stamenović, Natalija Bogdanović, Nina Vićentić and Andrea Palašti

CREATIVE TEAM:

Comissioners: Biljana Jotić and Tatjana Dadić Dinulović

Mentor team: Maja Vilić, Maša Seničić and Vladimir Savić

Student Authors: Keti Zaharijev, Mina Radovanović, Petra Perović, Višnja Vukajlović, Una Kotur, Itana Šestović, Nikola Stojadinović, Ružica Ristivojević, Lucija Stijepović, Jana Baljak, Tanja Stefanović, Marija Pokrajac, Angelina Biskupljanin, Miloš Janjić and Aleksandar Jovanović

Production Management: Andrija Dinulović, Janko Dimitrijević and Zoja Erdeljan

Technical Team: Vladimir Savić, Igor Ljubić, Nađa Vukorep, Darko Sekulić, Nina Bogdanović, Ivan Nikolovski and Isidora Pokrajac

ORGANISATION

Museum of Applied Arts; SCEN – Centre for Scene Design, Architecture and Technology – Oistat Centre Serbia