Local Matters goes South-east this week. We are in the Serbian city of Novi Sad, one of the three European capitals of culture this year, along with Kaunas in Lithuania and Esch-sur-Alzette.
In Novi Sad, every first meeting takes place in one of the many bars on the street and in courtyards. People are outside all the time, having coffee and beer in Restaurants are crowded even on a normal Tuesday. And every night, there are concerts in one of the bars and in the cultural centres, mainly rock and punk, even Jazz and techno. In one of these courtyard cafés, I met Zoran Bulatovic “Bale”. Bale is a guitar player from Novi Sad; in the 1980s, he was part of the post-punk/new wave band “Luna”, produced a solo album in New York City, where he lived for 13 years; he moved to Italy, and a few years ago back to Novi Sad. He heard how the alternative scene has struggled with getting visibility within the plans the plans for the capital of culture and wanted to settle things. “The initial problem was that they [the foundation organizing the capital of culture] were so unorganized that, as soon as we would agree on a project, they changed the rules, they changed their forms.” According to Bale, it has been very difficult for artists to keep up with the bureaucratic effort they had to get their projects accepted. Bale founded an NGO to support all these actors of the alternative cultural scene in participating at the capital of culture. He wanted to provide them the administrative and legal assistance that the foundation couldn’t provide.
After all, the alternative cultural scene in Novi Sad has a strong tradition and reputation. For the people in Novi Sad, in Serbia and in Ex-Yugoslavia, Novi Sad has always been a capital of culture. The Serbian National theatre is based here, and more importantly, a thriving underground culture scene emerged already in the 1920s with dadaism. The alternative cultural centres produced internationally well-known artists such as Marina Abramovic.
Bale’s idea was to create a platform that brings all the actors and venues of the alternative scene in Novi Sad together, one website where everyone can see what is going on in the next days, and that provides links so that people can learn about the history of the place, the local art scene. After the first phase though, he didn’t receive anymore funding from the foundation and his project for now is put on ice. The alternative scene in Novi Sad, just as the one in Esch, continues to struggle with the organization of the European capital of culture.