Youth Cultural Centers of Belgrade

Youth Cultural Centers of Belgrade 
Exhibition
June 30, 2012
Magacin, 4 Kraljevića Marka, Belgrade

The exhibition discursively presents the archival material and methodology we used in the work during the workshop Youth Cultural Centers of Belgrade. By presenting the work process, we want to open a space for further critical reflection on the origin, work and transformation of the aforementioned institutions, in which we see our collective research as only a small part.

The topic of the workshop Youth Cultural Centers of Belgrade is the process of transforming youth cultural institutions established during the socialist Yugoslavia into institutions of a national neoliberal capitalist state. A significant number of institutions in the SFRY were founded with the aim of opening up space for youth and students; we will mention just a few: Tribina mladih, Novi Sad (1954), Dom omladine Belgrade (1964), Student Cultural Center, Belgrade (1968); Dom kulture “Studentski grad”, Belgrade (1971); Student Cultural Center, Novi Sad; Youth Club Sonja Marinković, Novi Sad; etc. As a starting point for the work, we have chosen three institutions from Belgrade: Dom omladine, Belgrade; Student Cultural Center, Belgrade and Dom kulture “Studentski grad”. The above institutions were established as a result of the socialist cultural policy of Yugoslavia, which strongly linked culture and education. Although these institutions were not founded in the same socio-political circumstances and with identical goals, they served in the long term as institutional platforms within which support was provided for alternative and autonomous artistic production, especially of the younger generation. It should be borne in mind that youth cultural institutions were places of constant ideological conflicts, that they enabled the production of different artistic practices, more or less political, as well as different degrees of socialization of young people. The analysis of the “transformations” of these institutions raises the question to what extent their transformation can be linked to a specific time period clearly defined by economic and political changes, and to what extent was it the result of contradictions in the policies of youth cultural centers that have been visible since their inception?