Dragan Protić
area: Literature, Media Art
Key Facts
nationality
Serbiaarea
Literature, Media Artresidence
Belgraderecommending institution
BMEIAtime period
July 2015 - July 2015Trained as architect, for the team/group-practice-based work, Dragan Protić co-founded (together with Đorđe Balmazović) the ŠKART group.
ŠKART (rejects/ausschus/scarto, <link http: www.skart.rs>www.skart.rs) group, founded in 1990 at the Faculty of Architecture in Belgrade, is (still) functioning as an ongoing productive conflict of poetry, architecture, graphic design, mixed media and social activism.
After first 10 years of ŠKART'S selfproduction-selfdistribution street actions (Survival Coupons, Your shit = Your responsibility, Nothing for Beginning, ...), the group launched a long-term process of initiating and developing new collectives and networks, such as:
> choirs (open participation for all - creating and performing their own songs on public rehearsals) HORKEŠKART, PROBA/rehearsal, + chidren-choirs: DECA SA MESECA/moon-children, ApriZMAJun/aprildragonjun ((2000 - ongoing))
> inter-generation choir HOR-RUK (youth+pensioners=choir) ((2013 - ongoing))
> embroidery groups (re-using kitchen-poetry and handcrafting in new social/political context; Female and Male group) ((2000 - ongoing))
> poetry festivals and networks (POETRYING/Pesnicenje - public training for newcomers and old-siders + selfpublishing poetry edition) ((2007 - ongoing))
> kids poetry+music workshops and shows ((2005 - ongoing)
> schools poetry class-attacs-performances, workshops and shows ((2008 - ongoing))
ŠKART performed, workshopped, exhibited and lectured worldwide (Europe, America, Asia).
(...last 4 years):
2013, MINI-RETSROSPECTIVE, AICHI Triennial, Nagoya
2012, RETROSPECTIVE EXHIBITION, Museum of applied Arts, Belgrade
2011, RETROSPECTIVE EXHIBITION, Space - London
2010, SEE-SAW / PLAY-GROW (polygon of dis-balance), Venice Biennial of Architecture
Through non-stop-experimental-forms ŠKART implements poetry into new art practice, both community based and critically sharp.
>>> (poetry retry) NO TIME FOR POETRY
As "the doors to the west", and in the same time, looking from another side, "the doors to the Balkans", Wiena became host and new home for (now already) hundreds of thousands of immigrants. In the last 20 years, aside from Russia and Turkey, most of them are coming from ex-Yugoslav countries.
pre-experience:
work is based on previous mixed-media experiences and will be visible in various situations, from local-school actions and immigrant's centers meetings to international art shows and university lectures
side forms:
visual poetry, performed poetry, applied poetry, singing poetry, handcraft-poetry, document-poetry... are the forms which will be implemented into this research, participations and collaborations
in short:
Collected immigrants' stories will be transformed into short poems and illustrated in form of poetry-boards, easy for re-production, re-interpretation, re-printing and re-exhibiting. Fragments of the works are going to be both shaped into handcrafts poetry-products and composed for choir-singing.
Collaboration with poetry/literature-scene and choir-collectives might open new refreshing network for exchanging repertoire with another collectives and communities/regions/countries (for the beginning in Austria and Serbia/Balkans)
steps:
1. interviews with immigrants
2. collaboration with Weenies poets and illustrators
3. collaboration with immigrant handcraft collectives
4. production of poetry-boards and handcraft poetry-products
5. collaboration with choirs (composing and rehearsing new-made songs out of immigrant's stories)
6. collective works published in small-free-books
7. distribution and live performances (libraries, schools, willages, immigrant's centers alternative cultural and public spaces,...)
8. DIY short video-clips (you-tube based, for worldwide free distribution)