The City of Zagreb and Alliance for the Centre for Independent Culture and Youth founded the Centre for independent culture and youth which will be situated on several locations in Zagreb. In Croatia, this is the first example of such institution based on the mixed ownership and it represents a historic moment for the City of Zagreb as well as for the whole country and, most important, for independent culture in Croatia. This Centre is the result of a successful bottom-up initiative.
Here, I will briefly take you through the advocacy process and struggles which were applied for establishing the Centre. I also hope that it can serve as good example for other cities in the Western Balkan region or South East Europe, as well as wider. To put the whole strategy into the context, I have to get back to the 90's which brought variety of changes into Croatian landscape and had started the process of transition and introduction of democratic values.
In Croatia, but also in majority of post-socialist countries, cultural production during 90's started to decrease, cultural heritage was ignored and renovation of cultural infrastructure wasn’t implemented. At the end of the 20th century culture was recognised as traditional, elitist and nationalistic. At the same time, many groups of artists, individuals and organisations, which brought new and different tendencies in Croatian culture, arose. All of them were founded or survived thanks to international funds such as Open Society Institute – Croatia, European Cultural Foundation etc.
In the capital of the country clubs which promoted independent, alternative and underground music and culture had worked only periodically and none of them had offered programmes based on various artistic expressions (music, theatre, film, fine arts etc.). Thus so, on the spatial map of culture in Zagreb, it wasn’t possible to find place of gathering for neither young people nor any spaces for presentation of independent cultural production. Left on the street, young people have started to create cultural and artistic programmes independently. Club Mochvara (Swamp) was the first place that offered programme based on heterogeneous concept of cultural and artistic practices. Right after the opening of club Mochvara, net.cultural club mama and club ATTACK! have started with their programmes.
Anyhow, these places were not sufficient for the production and realisation of cultural and artistic programmes of numerous independent cultural organisations which started to appear more and more after 2000. These organisations were forced to work in their own private apartments, using spaces for which they had to pay commercial prices or, periodically, used public cultural facilities. This situation induced serious instability and it could have brought to the collapse of certain organisations. Therefore, in the spring 2005, before local elections in Zagreb, network of organisations started the process of public advocacy. This public advocacy network was gathered around the collaborative platform Zagreb – Cultural Capital of Europe 3000, clubs Mochvara, Attack and mama, Clubture Network and Croatian Youth Network. The aim was to improve condition of cultural production for independent organisations and solve the question concerning lack of spaces for their production (wider overview of this public debates can be found in the publication Guide to Citizen Participation in Local Cultural Policy Development for European Cities).
The process resulted in a declaration entitled: "Independent culture and youth in the development of the City of Zagreb" which included nine subsequent measures, among which was a measure for opening the Centre for independent culture and youth. This declaration was sign by numerous political parties which took part in the local elections and among them by the Social Democrat Party which at the end came to power. Thanks to the Declaration, representatives of independent organisations had a written trace of agreement with politicians for the first time. Based on this document, independent organisations were able to go further. Later same year, the first edition of the manifestation Operation:City, which was the result of collaboration between majority of independent organisations in Zagreb. Operation:City showed necessities for the spaces in which they could work and present their products, but also necessities of the audiences in Zagreb and their need to have a place which would systematically offer them contemporary cultural and artistic contents.
Since the Government of the City of Zagreb, which was obliged to implement measures of the Declaration, hasn’t respected their own signature, independent organisations, in 2006, founded Alliance for the Centre for Independent Culture and Youth. Foundation of Alliance was aimed to continue the struggle for the space. Through the Alliance, the opening of institution, based on mixed ownership between City of Zagreb and independent organisations was advocated. Next to this, from the very beginning, the Alliance insisted on the Centre which would be situated on several locations in the city. This was important for avoiding isolation of independent culture and youth, but also to respond to their various needs (from educations, performing arts, music, information, cultural events, to ensure the spaces for quality and creativity leisure of youth).
Struggles, advocacy and constant negotiations between the City of Zagreb and the Alliance, have lasted for almost the whole mandate of actual Government. After nearly four years of actions, the agreement for establishing the Centre was reached. Soon after Zagreb City Assembly accepted the proposals of Zagreb municipality for foundation of the institution, and in the mid of December 2008, the Contract for establishing the Centre was signed by the major Milan Bandić and president of the Alliance, Emina Višnić, who is also to be the future director of the Centre.
The City of Zagreb provides space and technical condition for the realisation of programmes. According to the announcements, it does not have any intentions to interfere in program and management policies of the Centre. Centre itself will not produce new cultural program but it will, beside the spaces and technical resources, assure informal education and informing. Centre will not be supported only from the City budget, but the Alliance is supposed to provide diversification of assets applying to all accessible funds.
Even if it is quite clear that probably there would not come to the establishment that there are no elections in front of us (May 2009), it is clear that perseverance and patience of independent cultural and youth organisations brought to concrete results. It is important to introduce new types of collectivity in the cultural planning and it seems that the Government of Zagreb, by establishing this Centre, became aware of the importance of this sector in the future development of the city.
Although I am aware that urban cultural policy is a complex artwork and that there is no formula which could be applied or just simply copied, I really believe that this example of a successful bottom-up initiative can inspire other cities in the region, as well as municipalities and independent culture and youth organisations.
Tagged as:
bottom-up initiative, centre, croatia, independent culture, youth
LabforCulture is a partner initiative of the European Cultural Foundation. LabforCulture is grateful for the support provided by its funders.
