Slobodne veze is alternative to what?

42 artist initiatives from different countries participate to the 1st International Artist Initiatives İstanbul Meeting. "Slobodne veze/ loose associations, contemporary art practices" is one of these. Below you will find the answers given by "Slobodne veze/ loose associations, contemporary art practices" to our questions regarding the ocassion...



Motivation: Opportunity for new encounters that could result with new collaborations. Getting to know new cultural context.

When: activities- since 2007: organization since February 2009

Where: Zagreb Student Center, Croatian Association of Visual artists

What: The organization is dealing with critical research on international art practices and potentials of their wider reception. It encourages encounter, discussion and exchange, and is active internationally.

Who: Slobodne veze/Loose associations is artist and curators initiative. It is set as a platform for discussion and critical research on contemporary production of art as production of social. The initiative supports the projects that include the encounter, the exchange and discussion, in order to inscite re-examination of our own context, our position in it, allowing the other possibilities, the other situations (of differences) to happen. Our activities are realized through Loose Associations, contemporary art on the interbational scene today programme that has been running in Zagreb for three years, and through extensive collaborations within several international art projects.

Why: Our activities are set to examine the local context, the possibility and the role of art in it, its level of self- sufficiency, possible limitations of (intercultural) exchange and question social, political, economical conditions that determine dominant lines of movement. Through our activities we try to set the different view on dominant system of values, creating situations of critical reflection, by opening different channels of collaboration within art and culture field. The opportunity for new encounters is crucial for our work.

Context: Recent activities of our initiative have been pointed towards the Eastern European collaborations. By adopting documentary view of the passenger, who is visiting this area, trying to record at least some of the stories from these trips, we intended to sketch a map of possible movements to the east, after our compass, previously, almost as a rule, has been pointing to the west. We aim at contributing to self- contextualization of the non western art scenes (including our own), by involving in direct dialogue with them. Besides, there is strong moment of ecology in art that our initiative promotes. It can be summarized through art practices of Tonka Malekovic who tries to legitimate already existing processes in space, to offer art frame to the phenomenon that appears spontaneously through the inter relation between the individual, nature and the society.

Ambition: The question of solidarity disappearing, we feel as a generational and global problem. Re-starting knitting social fabric that has been dissolving slowly on our way to the century of the self, would be one of our mission if we would be in position to decide.