CITY GUERILLA /// YEAR 2017
PROJECTS IN REVIEW
Å KOGRAD_SCHOOL - CITY!
My Piece of the City_ŠKOGRAD_School-city_ (S.O.U.P + Škogled)
JAN
FEB
MAR
APR
MAY
JUN
JUL
Shared cities / conference Play your way round / action BINA participation / presentation 4cities excursion / guided tour
Mixer festival participation
Elementary school w
Schoolabora
AUG
SEP
OCT
NOV
DEC
n / presentation
workshops / workshops
atory 001 / summer school Human Library / education event Elementary school workshops / workshops 4Cities/ presentation Oktobarh/ presentation Schoolaboratory XY / BITEF Poliphony performance
Project Željko Lučić coordinators:
Project Collaborators: David Stanley, Dušan Milić, Dušana Nikolić, Hana Godomski, Ljubica BeljankiRistić, Maja Bosnić ,Marina Ristić, Sanja Milić, Simon Marić, Željko Lučić, Ivan Gradišar, Gordan, Education Forum
(S.O.U.P) Ivan Simić Mirjana Utvić, Natalija Ostojić, Olivera Petrović ,
Project partners: Elementary School ‘Vlada Obradović Kameni’
(Škogled) Anja Petrović, Jelena Joksimović, Predrag Milić
Supported by: Goethe Institut Belgrade Škozorište BINA (Belgrade International Week of architecture) Entrepreneurs and neighbors from the neighborhood of Ledine key words
Description:
community mobilization,social capacity building, Željko urbanLučić periphery, grassroots education, participation design
Škograd is an urban-educational research which aims to initiate a long-term process of community activities and dialogue in Ledine, one of Belgrade’s informal suburban settlements. Team Škograd is focused on urban issues which are often out of focus in current planning and educational practices. Main areas of the team’s activity are community mobilization and alternative approach to education, with the idea of building a community’s social capacity. By stepping out from both the urban center and the school curriculum, the team tries to enroot its work with children from the suburban neighborhood of Ledine, led by the idea of building a different understanding of our society through communal local action. School and its schoolyard are the only shared community spaces that families and children can use during their free time, but growing segregation and decreasing number of students threaten to bring the school to closure. Together with local children, the school staff and neighbors, the team is working on reversing this trend and transforming the school into a creative and inviting space for the entire neighborhood. United in this process, the local community is creating the conditions for a long-term collective effort to improve the quality of life in the neighborhood. Situated in the municipality of New Belgrade, Ledine is only one of Belgrade’s many illegally constructed peripheral neighborhoods with inadequate life conditions. Still, team Škograd believes that the neighborhood - with its morphology, spatial, and functional scope - presents a suitable ground for identifying and understanding phenomena that occur in such environments, as well as for starting a series of interventions with the goal of improving the quality of life of its inhabitants. Škograd emerged from cooperation between collectives Škogled, School of Urban Practices and Political Space Matters.
Elementary school OŠ „Vlada Obradović – Kameni“ covers the area of the municipality of MZ Ledine in New Belgrade. The neighbourhood is very specific, diverse in national structure and consists of members of the Serbian, Roma and Albanian populations. Children come from very different families in cultural, educational and socio-economic terms, mostly from very poor families and with a scarce foreground. The school intends to nurture and develop healthy relationships among its students with its contents and programs and to use this diversity as its advantage. The strength of the school lies in a young, creative and capable collective who wants to make this school a better, more beautyfull and more pleasant for life and work. The official cooperation between the association of citizens Škogled and the Elementary school Vlada Obradović Kameni was started by signing a cooperation agreement at the beging of year 2017. Specificity of the school - it has about 350 pupils, of which about 38% are Serbs, 40% are Roma, and 22% are from other ethnic groups. School of Urban Practices (City Guerilla) is dedicated to building dialogue and including the community in the process of developing new concepts of common public spaces. United during master’s studies, they wished to direct their newly gained professional calling – that of the architect – into a new way of thinking about the surroundings, its changes, agents, and (their own) roles in the process. Since 2013 they have been exploring new local practices of participative design through one-on-one meetings with citizens, experts, investors and urban decision makers. ŠKOGLED is a collective continuation of social engagement of its members. This engagement tries to challenge current status in the Belgrade’s peripheral neighborhood called Ledine. Their actions are directed toward restrengthening social capital from bottom up, inside outwards, from citizens toward society. The team gathers experts from fields of psychology, sociology, pedagogy, andragogy, philology, economics, law, arts, design, architecture and urban studies. Through transdisciplinary work, the team seeks to discover new urban and educational practices, interpret them creatively, and put them in new relations which then have the potential to improve the quality of urban life. POLITICAL SPACE MATTERS explores the process of improving the quality of life in urban areas by reflecting on the role of political actors - citizens and organizations - during this process. PSM explores the areas and ways of acting and practice of networking of political actors in cities, as well as the importance of the role of public space in their work.
,,We build the school, because the school build us’’
Project Activities: Before our actions in the neighborhood of Ledine itself, based on desk research on urban and social transformations in the community in the period from December 2016 to June 2017, we have applied for several project grants competitions, those funded by: Ministry of culture and information (Serbia); Secretariat for Culture (Belgrade); Shared cities creative momentum; UN Habitat; SchĂźler helfen leben. Unfortunately, these applications went without positive response. Participation at the Shared cities conference Date: 3rd May, 2017 Venue:Contemporary architecture centre, Budapest Link: https://www.sharedcities.eu/city/budapest/ Visitors/participants: 2 team members presented, number of visitors of the presentation was around 20 Short description: Presentation of project was foxused on urbanistic proceses and politics in Ledine. This presentation brought about a very positive response from our colleagues from Europe.
Guerilla action - play your way around Date: May 10th, 2017 Venue: Streets of Ledine Link: http://gradimoskolujerskolagradinas.blogspot. rs/2017/05/akcija-krede-10-maj-2017-300-630h-am. html https://www.facebook.com/pg /skogled/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1890166347907961 Participants: 6 persons in setting the action, and numerous children (approximately 30) in using chalks to transform the streets of Ledine Short description: The aim of this action was to provoke children to engage in using the public space creatively. In the night between 9th and 10th of May we have set the baskets with chalks on the different sites along the streets in Ledine. Baskets were positioned so that children can easily spot them, and we have started some drawings to encourage them to use the chalks. In the morning, children transformed the streets with drawings and messages. They showed that any place can be a playground when there is not enough playgrounds otherwise. Moreover, this action was a research process that showed us which parts, specifically which streets of Ledine are used by children in which way. As a result we have mapped the spaces where children do not spend much time.
Participation at the Belgrade International Architecture Week (BINA) Date: 12-13th May, 2017 Venue: Urban Planning Institute of Belgrade; Bina walk through Ledine Link: http://futurearchitectureplatform.org/programme/28/belgrade-outskirts-envision-future/ http://www.bina.rs/program-2017 Video of the presentation: https://www.facebook. com/pg/skogled/videos/?ref=page_internal Visitors/participants: 5 team members and numerous local and foreign urbanism experts audience (approximately 50 people) Short description: Our participation at BINA was twofold: presentation of our project on the Future architecture platform conference - Belgrade outskirts/Envisioning future; and leading a part of excursion of Belgrade’s suburbs when it passed through Ledine.
Participation on the Mixer festival (Mixer talks - Cities for all) Date: 27th May, 2017 Venue: Žitomlin Silos Link:http://festival.mikser.rs/en/project/mikser-talks-cities/ video of the presentation https://www.facebook.com/pg /skogled/videos/?ref=page_internal Participants: 2 team members and international guests Visitors: around 20 Short description: Our presentation was focused on the ways of sharing public spaces and improving those spaces by developing their educational role.
4cities master program excursion Date: 20th May, 2017 Venue: Ledine Link: http://www.4cities.eu/ ; https://drive.google. com/drive/folders/0B2HVmDBwbYqOd2YyZm5vR0tONjQ Visitors/participants: 15 (two members of our team and the rest were 4Cities master programe students) Short description: Excursion through Belgrade for these students included a guided walk around the neighborhood of Ledine with special focus on the discussion about of our work on strengthening the bond between the local school and the community. As a result, one of the students is dealing with the issue of this community in her master thesis and is about to finish and defend it soon.
School workshops Date: May 24th & June 7th, 2017 Venue: Elementary School ‘Vlada Obradović Kameni’ Link: http://gradimoskolujerskolagradinas.blogspot. rs/2017/05/radionica-1.html http://gradimoskolujerskolagradinas.blogspot. rs/2017/06/radionica-2.html Visitors/participants: 20 (12 children, 2 librarians, headmistress, teacher) Short description: During the first workshop, we arranged several introductory activities and presented to the students our intentions on working with them and the school in the coming period. Then we divided into teams and discussed all the things we’d like an ideal school to have. The second workshop was dedicated to planning the summer school - Schoolaboratory 001 - together with children (10), librarians (2), and us (2). We made a draft plan of the summer school’s aims, activities, organizational teams and timeline.
Participation at the Belgrade crowdfunding convention Date: 7th June, 2017 Venue: Dorćol Platz Link: http://crowdfundingconvention.eu/belgrade/ belgrade2017 our pitch video: https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=vPirXKkL1mU Visitors/participants : 2 team members Short description: We have applied to pitch our project idea at the event (link above), and during the Convention our pitch won by audience vote. Our price will be help in design, copywriting and video making (in value of 1000 euros) for our crowdfunding campaign from Brodoto agency, which organized the event.
Participation at the Belgrade crowdfunding Academy Date: 1st and 2nd of July, 15th and 16th of July 2017 Venue: GIZ, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit, Belgrade Organisors: Marketing Agency Brodoto and German agency (GIZ) Link: http://www.crowdfunding.rs/ Participants : 3 team members Anja Petrović, Jelena Joksimović and Olivera Petrović Short description: Attendance at this academy is a start in development of our crowdfunding campaign. This was a uniqe educational program 1st time organised in Serbia.
Announcement of Schoolaboratory 001 and preparation of working materials Date: July 15-19th, 2017 Venue: Goethe Institute, elementary school “Vlada Obradović Kameni”, neighborhood of Ledine Visitors/participants: 7 team members and visitors (approximately 100 persons) Short description: As part of the announcement, we put up posters around the neighborhood, posted the call for participation on social media and organized a campaign in the school. Application was voluntary and attendance at the summer school was free of charge.
Schoollaboratory 001 Date: June 20-17th, 2017 Venue: Elementary School “Vlada Obradović Kameni” Link: http://gradimoskolujerskolagradinas.blogspot.rs/search/label/%C5%A1kolaboratorija%20001 Visitors/participants: 45 participants, up to 100 visitors Project Partner: Elementary School ‘Vlada Obradović Kameni’ Support: Goethe Institute Belgrad, Center for Promotion of Science with donation of Popular Science magazine), local craftsmen and entrepreneurs, friends, family and neighbours Collaboratos: David Stanley, Dušan Milić, Dušana Nikolić, Hana Godomski, Ljubica Beljanki-Ristić, Maja Bosnić, Marina Ristić, Petar Petrović, Sanja Milić, Simon Marić, Željko Lučić
From June 20th to 27th 2017th, team Škograd held Schoolaboratory 001, a summer school for local children in Ledine, a suburban neighborhood of Belgrade. The weeklong activities took place in the yard and classrooms of the local school with the aim to strengthen the communication between the school nad the neighbourhood. The goal was to connect with the local children, develop a sense of belonging to the local school, and strengthen connections between the community and the school - both spatially and symbolically - through play, conversation and collective creation. Children’s participation in Schoolaboratory 001 was free and voluntary. We invited local children from pre-school to graduate ages, no matter if they are students of the local school or not. Finally, the group was very diverse, gender-vise, age-vise, and school enrollment vise. Some of the children in Schoolaboratory 001 never attended school, some were early school leavers and some were regular students of Ledine’s or some other schools in the New Belgrade municipality. During the summer school, we had common activities for all participants and group projects in four sections: music and choreography, storytelling, video and drama, and crafts. All sections were together with participants created in a very open and participative dialogue driven by children’s initiatives.
Summer school program was held everyday in following schedule: 9:00-10:00 Gathering in the schoolyard of participants and Streching activities 10:00 -12:00 Work in groups: Crafts Music and Choreography Video&Drama Storytelling or Joined activities with Summer Schoolguest 12:00-13:00 Break for refreshment and snack 13:00- 14:00 Closing activities witin sections - including demonstration of the achieved results and discussions about the tomorrow’s activities.
On the first day, we created a list of rules of friendly behavior and painted our tools and equipment (pallets used as furniture, styrofoam cubes used as drums etc). We organized a storytelling workshop led by our guest, journalist and writer Hana Gadomski, and a workshop on making musical instruments out of recycled materials, led by another guest - Maja Bosnić, composer in projects Shhumigrad and Đubrofonija. In one of our morning stretching sessions, we were joined by pedagogist and yoga instructor Marina Ristić. We had a few evening activities as well: On the second day - 21st of June - with the group of six children we went to Kolarac for the performance of Elemental Culture Collective - an international percussionist group. On Saturday, June 24th, we took a group of children to Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra’s open-air concert, and on Sunday we organized a screening of short films in the school yard. The final day was made memorable in the neighborhood as we passed through the streets of Ledine in a festive atmosphere, inviting neighbors to join us in the evening to celebrate the end of Schoolaboratory 001. In the school yard, we set up an exhibition of artifacts created during the week-long workshops, screened a film made by the video and drama section, and handed diplomas to the participants. Schoolaboratory 001 was the beginner phase of collaboration between team Škograd and the local school in strengthening and expanding the role of the School in the local community.
Celebrating the closing of Schoollaboratory 001 program on the streets of Ledine ,,We build the school, because the school build us’’
Day 1 - Setting of the Schoollaboratory 001 Day 5 - atmosphere in breaks
Day 2 - Presentations of sections Day 6 - Group visit to Philharmonic picnic
Day 3- Morning streching Day 7 - Envisioning the new school Video&Drama group
Day 4- Making of collective mental map ,,From house to school, from school to house’’
Human Library Date: 11the of September 2017 Venue: Elementary School OŠ ,,Vlada Kameni Obradović’’ Collaborators: School Librarans, Social Inclusion and Poverty Reduction Unit and Center for interactive Pedagoy Links : http://socijalnoukljucivanje.gov.rs/rs/ http://www.cipcentar.org/ Participants: around 20 Short description: This is a project of performative act where “Human books” - young Roma talk about their experiences and struggles while growing up. The “books” are trained and prepared to tell their stories with the positive ending and a success tone as it actually developed for them. After the stores were told discussion with children and school staff was opened with each “book”Through hearing these stories the ,, Readers’’ in this case School pupils and staff and Ledine neighbours could find out more about how these young people fought throuh judgment and sterotypes as students.
Škograd presentation at 4Cities September Salon Date: 23rd of September 2017 Venue: Brussel Collaborators: 4Cities study programme Links : http://www.4cities.eu/ Participants: around 50 Short description: This event is organised as part of 4Cities studies programme which gathers students and alumnis in one place. This time two of our members that finished this study programme were invited to talk about Škograd project and our practice. This opportunity was a way to invite students to collaborate with us and to follow the process. Another one of the students that was at our study visit during month period decided to have Ledine and our project as a case study for his master thesis.
Ĺ kograd at OKTOBARH Date: 22nd of October 2017 Venue: Cultural Center LAB, Novi Sad - Serbia Collaborators: Oktobarh Links : https://oktobarh.tumblr.com/ Visitors: around 10 Short description: Oktobarh is dedicated to connecting architecture students and wider audience with architecural practices formed by real time circumstances. As a result we have been invited to be guest at Techical university to give another presentation to their students.
Schoollaboratory of the Future Performance Date: 5th of November 2017 Venue: Elementary School “Vlada Obradović Kameni” Link: http://gradimoskolujerskolagradinas.blogspot.rs/search/label/%C5%A1kolaboratorija%20001 Visitors: up to 100 visitors Participants: up to 40 school students and memebers of school staff Partners: Bitef Polifony, CEDEUM (Center for drama in education and and art), Elementary School ‘Vlada Obradović Kameni’, Goethe Institute Belgrad, Educational forum Support: Goethe Institut Belgrad, Ministry of Culture and Information - Repulbic Serbia,Belgrade public Transportation - line 71, local entrepreneur ,, Sunce’’, friends, family and neighbours. Collaboratos: Dušana Nikolić, Sanja Milić, Ivan Gradišar, Ljubica Beljanki-Ristić
At the beginning of November, at the elementary school “Vlada Obradović Kameni” in Ledine, it was very lively and cheerful because at the school there was a “Schoollaboratory of the Future” which was attended by all the children, teachers, parents and numerous distinguished guests - professors of the Faculty of Philosophy, public figures, more associations and schools, led the exploration journey that opened the marvelous spaces of imagination with a look into the future which with this encounter became even more wonderful reality. Through this reactions, an exceptional event, the initiative of the “Škograd” collective and the “Obradovic Kameni” elementary school continued in the joint action of improving the quality of life and a sustainable local community, as well as the cooperation initiated by the project “Creative Games” with the exchange of experience and incentives to mark 40 years since the founding of the “Škozorišta”, a children’s drama studio, which resulted in numerous programs of creative workshops and innovative, creative and participatory projects from “Školigrice” to Bitef Poliphony, accompanying program of the famous festival of new theater tendencies - promoters of innovative, creative and participative methods and activities of drama and theater in education. In the best sense of this memorable 5th of November, creative workshops of the “Schoolaboratory of the future” have made their creative contribution to the significant jubilee of “Škozorište”. Founder of the “Škozorišta” and esteemed drama teacher Ljubica Beljanski-Ristić pointed out that the Škograd collective and students of the “Vlada Obradović Kameni” school, with the librarians who worked with them for months, consider the followers of the 40-year ŠK tradition - an innovative, creative and participative drama work with children. Concept for this performance and preparation period lasted for full 2 months since the beginning of the school year in September. School librarians and Škogad team together with children made a concept of the School of the future - Schoollaboratry XY. The result of these workshops is three part performance. Three clasrooms have been transformed into places for three interactive classes of future: Škosmos,
Škodom and Šknjigoteka.
In the days of preparation and at the day of performance the space of School has been transformed into true Cultural Community Center.
Ĺ KOSMOS Ĺ kosmos was a small drama performance about learning that does not even know about age, science, art or religion as a special discipline, but for all of them together. It was a time of love, life, happiness, evil, death, knowledge, inspiration, good and madness. This class promoted experiential learning through drama where children and adults played/impersonated complex concepts about human existence.
Ĺ KNJIGOTEKA Participants in Ĺ knjigoteka have met books that fly and do a lot of unusual things. But, most importantly, the participants managed to create common stories from revived sentences from different books. The goal was to enable everyone to act as creators and to feel joy. Divergent thinking, playfulness, imagination and cooperation were the channels of discovery and learning during this class.
ŠKODOM At Škodom, guests felt the home atmosphere at school and met each other in an unusual way - through games, dancing and home cooking. Škodom’s goal was to show the importance of learning through feelings, to make students at school feel at home. Children with their families tried to make the service rich and delicious. It was a class that really connected the community and the school. It displayed what the school can learn from the community and vise versa. Moreover it showed that expanding the role of the school by opening it toward the community is not only natural but creates a very fruitful soil for the learning itself.
After all, all students had joint activities, because togetherness is very important in the Schoolaboratory of the future. Participants in the school hall together watched a film about the school of the future, which was created at video workshops at the summer school “Školaboratorija 001”.
Guests coming from all parts of Belgrade came with an extra organized line of bus No. 71 - direct line to Ledine. This was organized in collaboration with City transportation.
Reach & impact The conferences where we have presented our project gathered from a dozen to a hundred participantsProfessionals, practicians and scientists coming from the fields of urban studies, architecture and education..Attendance and active participation in discussions strenghten our critical thinking and broaden our network scope. Meeting people and witnessing their true interest into our project and significance they give to it, proves to us that is of relevance to our proffesional community. Schoolaboratory 001 - summer school, was the team’s major activity so far, gathering more than forty children from the neighborhood for the week long diverse activities. News of the summer school echoed on social media, where our Facebook Pages gained several hundred new Likes. This is where we built trust of community, and that is of great importance for participation processes and design. Schoolaboratory of the future - performance, re presents continuation of our efforts and a great honor as we made it as one of participant of Bitef Poliphony a relevant and established cultural event. The greatest impact is connections kids have made with other participants in this program. They had opportunity to perform outside of their school. We gained a great support from Educational Forum which gathers a lot of educational professionals and scientists with wide experinece in practice, academia and govermental institutions. At Belgrade Crowdfunding Convention, our project pitch won by audience vote, in a crowd of a hundred participants. non-presence in media (tv & journals): The process of getting to know the neighbourhood and the school was our main goal in this phase of the project, meaning that we completely focused on developing internal cohesion and sense of partnership between our collective, school staff, children and neighbours, which is why we avoided wider publicity and media coverage of our activities. The community we are working with is marginalized and has many different social disadvantages making the process of building the trust even more complicated. Regular social media presence was our only way to communicate with the community but also with wider audience, and only in later phases we plan to intensify cooperation with other sorts of media. The media that did report of our activities are Radio Belgrade 1 - live from performance Schoollaboratory of the Future, and publicity followed on platforms where we gave presentations and talks ( Mikser, Bina, Future architecture, Cultural Center LAB, 4Cities) and a text written for Educational Review.
Future plans Until the end of year 2017 it is expected that we sign a contract with BINA ( Belgrade international Week of Architecture) which recognized us and invited to be partners in next years Shared cities platform - Urban Hub 2. Through this platform we will make a co-design together with school students, staff and neighbours for an open classroom pavillion in the schoolyard. We will apply for Istanbul Bienalle themed The School of Schools as well as for participation at the European conference on educational research ECER. Along side we see it important to start with our program of open dialogues in which we want to invite proffesionals to communicate with us on the relevant project questions. This way we want to broaden the question on peripheral urban and educational processes and practices, and create a network involved in rethinking and re creating it.
Team Ĺ kograd blog: http://gradimoskolujerskolagradinas.blogspot.rs/
Links Ĺ kogled: https://www.facebook.com/skogled/ https://www.instagram.com/skogled/
School of Urban Practices: http://cityguerilla.org/ https://www.facebook.com/skolaurbanihpraksi/ Political Space Matters: https://politicalspacematters.org/ https://www.facebook.com/politicalspacematters/