FURTHER NETWORKING AND COOPERATION NEEDED IN RESEARCH AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF CULTURE FOR CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE IN SERBIA

An interdisciplinary conference dedicated to education and culture for children, with a focus on literature and dramatic writing, was successfully held at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts on 11 and 12 June. The event brought together a significant number of researchers and educators, practitioners in the fields of culture and children's and young adult literature, as well as MA and PhD students.

The conference was opened by Prof. Emerita Dr Milena Dragićević Šešić on behalf of the UNESCO Chair in Cultural Policy and Management at the University of Arts in Belgrade, and Dr Tatjana Nikolić, Research Associate at the Institute for Theatre, Film, Radio and Television of the Faculty of Dramatic Arts, who curated the programme.

The first day of the programme featured the presentation of a new bilingual book published by Edicija Jugoslavija, edited by dramaturge Ivana Momčilović: “The Unpredictable Past of the Future: The Political Potential of Utopia”. Alongside the editor, participants had the opportunity to hear from Dr Sanja Petrović Todosijević, Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Recent History of Serbia, and Dr Jelena Lalatović, Research Associate at the Centre for Theoretical Research in the Humanities, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb.

The keynote lecture, “In Dreams Begin Possibilities: Can Children’s Literature Change the World?”, was delivered by Prof. Dr Julia Mickenberg from the University of Texas at Austin and Prof. Dr Philip Nel from Kansas State University. Their presentation was followed by reflections from two invited discussants: dramaturge and Creative Director of Centre E8, Minja Bogavac, and Dr Irena Ristić, Full Professor at the Department of Theory and History of the Faculty of Dramatic Arts. A lively and engaging plenary discussion followed.

The final segment of the first day was the screening of the one-hour experimental film “Poems From Which We Learned – Fragments of Self-Learning in Sensible and Politics”, by the Collective for Aesthetic Education for All „PhD in One Night“, in collaboration with the Academic Film Center of the Students’ City Cultural Centre in Belgrade. The film was inspired by Rancièr(ian) perspectives on education, self-education and arts education.

The second day of the conference featured two discussion sessions. The first, dedicated to dramatic writing and theatre for young audiences as spaces of political and ecological imagination, was opened by Tijana Grumić, playwright and Assistant Professor at the Department of Dramaturgy of the Faculty of Dramatic Arts. Among other topics, she presented her work on the productions “Utopia”, “Do Birds Have the Capacity For Fun”, and “If Bees Disappear from the Face of the Earth”, which have been staged in Belgrade theatres in recent years.

The second session focused on the award-winning exhibition “Hedgehog’s Home: Imagining a Better World”, developed by the Museum of Yugoslavia. Inspired by Branko Ćopić’s well-known verse fable “Hedgehog’s Home”, the exhibition also emerged from an exceptionally participatory process involving children in the development of both the concept and the exhibition design. The exhibition was presented by curators Sara Sopić and Mirjana Slavković. Participants also viewed a short feature film produced as part of the exhibition project, through which the fable was translated into sign language, enabling children from the Deaf community to engage with the work for the first time.

On the second day, in addition to the visiting professors from the United States and the PhD students and researchers from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts, the discussions also involved Prof. Dr Zorana Opačić and Prof. Dr Bojan Marković from the Faculty of Education in Belgrade; Dr Tijana Tropin, researcher at the Institute for Literature and Arts; Milica Matijević, member of the Governing Board of the Serbian Library Association; Jovana Bundalo and Diana Kržanić Tepavac, members of the Executive Board of the National Centre of ASSITEJ Serbia; as well as other colleagues.

In the concluding remarks, participants expressed great satisfaction with the conference and emphasized the clear need for further networking and cooperation. This applies both to researchers, academics and educators from different institutions, and to artists and practitioners working in the field of culture for children and young people. Such collaboration is essential for advancing research, as well as for developing policies and programmes in this area.

The conference was organised within the framework of the new project of the Institute for Theatre, Film, Radio and Television of the Faculty of Dramatic Arts “Works in Progress: Towards New Research Topics”, in cooperation with the UNESCO Chair in Cultural Policy and Management at the University of Arts in Belgrade, the Centre for Theoretical Research in the Humanities at the University of Zagreb, Edicija Jugoslavija, Les Orangeries de Bierbais Residency in Belgium, and the Collective “PhD in One Night”.

The organisers would also like to extend their gratitude to the many colleagues at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts who contributed to the preparation and execution of the event, as well as to Predrag Mijatović, MA student in Theory and History at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts.

All photos from this gathering can be viewed on this link, made by Marija Momić: https://www.flickr.com/photos/204746133@N08/albums/72177720334224645/