Artists and creative people crammed the MSU

The thirteenth PechaKucha Night Zagreb was held on Friday the 13th of June at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MSU), this time entitled SOS Balkans since the funds to help the flooded areas in the region have been raised. PechaKucha Nights are time-limited informal presentations where people from different creative fields inspire the audience with their stories. PechaKucha Nights in Zagreb have been organized by Bruketa&Žinić Nursery, 3LHD, Pakt media and Lana Cavar since 2009.

A few presentations have been directly related to the floods: Lala Raščić made a performance about her Damned Dam project showing at the same time images from the flooded areas. Luka Čuljak from the Women’s Antifascist Network Zagreb spoke about their activities during and after the floods. Nikola Bojić who’s been dealing with the public space art talked about how much design and art can be of help for people who were stricken by floods.

Some of the presentations served as announcements for events to come: Prominent art historian Ješa Denegri talked about the similarities between the Historical Avant-Garde of the 20ies and the art of the 50ies of the 20th century in Croatia. Ana-Maria Miličić presented the work of the first virtual Avantgarde Musem. Both Denegri and Miličić announced the events which will be hosted by Museum of Contemporary Art in the following weeks. Queer Zagreb and Perforations Festival artistic director Zvonimir Dobrović talked about homophobia, which served as an intro to the Zagreb Gay Pride which happened the next day. Photographer Marina Paulenka introduced the international photography festival Organ vida.

Specific Zagreb stories were also presented. The issue of abandoned premises in the city ownership in Zagreb was risen in the presentation by cultural anthropologist Bojan Mucko while Jelena Iva Nikolić introduced the unusual underground eco-food market in Zagreb called the Small Market in the Attic.

This year’s winner of the Croatian Journalists Association Award Barbara Matejčić presented the research of her own neighborhood which she made for this occasion, raising questions about how much are people from large cities willing to get to know their neighbors and help them in difficulty. Another journalist Željko Špoljar also known as the Literary Groupie after his online news column, told his version of the story how to be a cultural journalist and a writer in Croatia.

Slovenian conceptual artist Janez Janša introduced his projects with emphasize the time dimension. Andro Giunio presented his projects in the field of design and music. The architect Ana Dana Beroš spoke about her project Intermundia awarded by the Venice Biennial a few days before PechaKucha. The project deals with migrations focusing on critical locations where immigrants cross over the Mediterranean.

The program ended with the presentation of a popular Croatian rock singer-songwriter Mile Kekin who shared his inspirations. The presentations were moderated by the witty Srđan Sandić and Aleksandar Hut Kono, a writer and a poet, and the party was in the hands of DJ Rea. The poster and visual identity were created by Marina Mijatović in cooperation with the SOS Balkan Posters initiative.

All the funds raised from the ticket sales totaling in HRK 21.400,00 (around EUR 2.800,00) will be donated to Croatian Red Cross for helping the flooded areas in the region.

The project was supported by AVC Zagreb, V grupa, Zagreb City Council for Culture and Sport, Beck’s, Trika, Zagreb Youth Theatre, Cerovski Print Boutique, Vrtoljak, Brokula&Ž, Nova forma and Domagoj Blažević who made the photos.

PechaKucha Nights were initiated by architects Astrid Klein i Mark Dytham (Klein/Dytham Arhitecture) in Tokyo in 2003, and the name comes from the Japanese word chit-chat. Today, authorised organizers of PechaKucha events exist in over 700 cities globally.

Lana Cavar (Program Coordinator, Creative Director)
Bruketa&Žinić OM / Jelena Mihelčić (PR and event manager), Davor Bruketa (Creative Director)

Pakt media / Tina Fras (Executive Producer)

3LHD / Silvije Novak

MSU – Museum of Contemporary Art / Nada Beroš, Martina Munivrana, Kosjenka Laszlo, Darko Čopec, Robert Pavković, Vinko Udovičić

AVC Zagreb (Audio-video Production) / Goran Šimunić