CHANGING ROOM Staff Exchange

A few weeks ago, my roommates asked me if I can organize a premiere of their recently finished documentary movie about street art and stencil art in Belgrade. Since I gave some thought about starting my own project within my host organization, I answered: “Yeah, of course. It will be really good“. So, the date was set.

March was my first month in Belgrade, which is when I came to volunteer in a Cultural Center Rex that define itself as a place for contemporary, socially engaged art and practice. Since this time, I worked on a number of Rex’s projects and with the inner structure of Cultural Centre, but mainly on Free Zone Film Festival Project, where I am a part of the organizational team working closely on PR databases and communication with local volunteers.

Some time ago, while going through the box where Rex keeps flyers for their former programmes, I stummbled upon a flyer entitled “Youth in action: volunteers party a Rex” that was organized by former EVS volunteers in Rex Martina Prokopova and Aleksandar Stamatovski. This thought about organizing a programme that will bring all the people that are part of the European Voluntary Service together in one place was going through my mind for some time. Creating a joint force of people who have a different outside view of the city and its life could be very useful and productive. So, I decided to create a platform for volunteers, an EVS night to exchange experiences, create new friends, cooperate with each other and support each other. This is an ongoing monthly event that will be upgraded and enriched with new people, new experiences and new ideas, entitled “Voluntary in Belgrade: EVS tips and tricks, future projects and results to come”.

The movie Coloring the white city (in Serbian, Belgrade means White City) will be presented at Cultural Centre Rex in Belgrade on next Monday, the 19th of September. After the screening, authors and at the same time my roommates - Angela Naranjo (Spain), Vincent Grethen (France) i Marie-Noelle Battaglia (France), volunteers of International Education Centre in Belgrade, will talk about their film-making and volunteer experiences.

It will surely be fun and inspirative, as usually with them. My only hope is that next month some other volunteer will come and ask me: “Can we have premiere of our…”

Best regards to all,
Ana

After spending two rather unforgettable months in France I’ve realized that EVS experience is hard to describe in a few words, but I could try by using several clichés and say that it’s something in the middle between “Eat, Pray, Love”* (one year trip with a lot of tasty food, self-reflection and trying out new things) and “L’Auberge Espagnole” (which refers more to communication - using at least three languages on a daily basis and meeting nice people from different countries).

So, let me introduce myself, I’m Inga Lace, I come from Latvia, where I did my Management of Culture studies and some nice jobs in this sphere until I found Noass who became my sending organization. I like contemporary art and reading in the parks, and different kinds of mixtures are good for me (dance + music, art + science, social + business, coffee + milk etc.) And I don’t like tomato juice.

I am an EVS volunteer in Mains d’Œuvres, Saint-Ouen (it’s almost Paris). Describing in my own words, Mains d’Œuvres is an organization that has a very rich programme of concerts, contemporary dance and theatre events, exhibitions, workshops and a centre for digital art and development (“something digital” as I said for the first time when I tried to explain it) and a lot of interdisciplinary projects as well. Moreover for each discipline there are artists in residencies which make around 60 people being closely related to my new working place.

Mains d’Œuvres in a lively Friday evening

My daily work in Mains d’Œuvres consists of assisting in marketing, administrative work and event preparation. That includes a lot of smaller and bigger tasks that helps to get to know the colleagues and organization very well. For example, I’ve cut the photos of residents to make the resident’s cards for all of them, I’ve been arranging the bookshop for opening of exhibition together with the curator and other volunteers, I’ve been walking around the galleries of Paris to distribute flyers, as well as learning the InDesign for making the press review, being a model for a dance event flyer and moving around with the plates in the restaurant (which is a good practise of French, by the way, to hear an reply to all the “un café, s’il vous plait”, “du pain” (bread) and “de l’eau” (water). It’s fun, without doubts.

I've seen the "stickers" method for learning language only in the movies before

I have gradually got accustomed to eating bread in every meal, having all the incredibly tasty things in boulangeries, kissing on two cheeks and going to work by the metro line 13 that’s the most crowded metro ever. So, I can now start to plan a project of my own which will be related to the screening of Latvian video from Noass archive. The other project I am doing a research on now is establishing the sustainability (ecological as well as economical and intellectual) in the organization. And I will also participate in the promotion of our lovely restaurant, as well as prepare a tour in English for visitors of the next exhibition.

Also, it makes me delighted every time I think of the many and different possibilities of spending time in here and finding exactly the things that are interesting for me. There have already been contemporary art exhibition openings, lectures of artists from different countries, discovering a special “somethingyoushouldknow” mailing list, dance shows, concert of a completely lovely British band “Lulu and the Lampshades”, artistic squats, looking to Paris from above, going to the Sunday’s fresh vegetable market, learning to see the difference between modern, postmodern and contemporary architecture and a lot more.

Sun in Saint-Ouen

* ”Eat, Pray, Love” – a book by Elizabeth Gilbert, 2010.
** “L’Auberge Espagnole” – the movie directed by Cédric Klapisch (2001), the first one I watched in French.

Water. Sinking Cities. is a project developed and managed by EVS volunteers (Monica Aggio and Linda Konone) at Trans Europe Halles Member Centres P60 (Amstelveen, The Netherlands) and NOASS (Riga, Latvia). Two international groups work on the project’s theme: Water as an element of the nature and water embedded in sinking cities reflection. Exchanges take place between the two countries, leading up to audiovisual art works for the final presentations in Riga and Amstelveen.

Whole exchange is divided into 3 steps:

STEP 01
From 21st to 27th June – exchange in Riga.
26th June - live audio visual performance in NOASS art space.

STEP 02
July - August – communication on the internet platform
The artists upload audio-visual materials and share ideas for the next Exchange

STEP 03
From 13th to 19th September – exchange in Amstelveen.
18th September – live audio visual performance in P60 venue.

Exchange in Riga has successfully finished.
The main idea of step 01 was to meet for the first time, get to know each other and to divide into successful and productive crews. Because of a good start and right activities, despite the short time, both artist crews managed to create very nice performances. And not least, the exchange itself went very well and pretty active.

The artists involved are: Ashkan Honarvar (NL), Emile Van De Coevering (NL), Gatis Stauga (LV), Kaspars Groševs (LV), Krišs Zilgalvis (LV), Roberts Galviņš (LV), Robin Koek (NL), Sander Houtman (NL), and Marieke Van De Ven (NL).

Some comments from participants about week in Riga:

“I think the idea of WSC itself is promising and even intriguing, at least for me. All artists are quite different from each other in means of expression and activities, and I like the challenge it offers. However sometimes it was hard to understand what is it exactly that we are working on - an art work, performance, entertainment piece? Perhaps it’s not that important, but these questions naturally come along with concerns of finding purpose in using image, sound, space, event. Conceptual guidelines and some “curatorial guidance” can really help in shaping up the result. Because if artists start from the scratch and there’s no real direction or guidelines than most probably the artist will do what he/she does best. In case of a group project it can lead to more or less interesting combinations or more likely dissonant fragments.
The week passed by really fast so it was just enough time to get to know everyone better and find some common interest point to work with. I thought the technical limitations didn’t disturb that much - just helped narrowing down all the possible choices, however unclarity of whether or not LED screen can be used left some choices to the last moment. The work process was quite short but kind an intense and it was interesting for me to try stepping into club culture aesthetics. I feel it has a potential of rethinking its elements and structures. So I hope this working process has just started and we will be able to work more on clearing the end result.”

Kaspars Groševs (LV)

“I think the exchange of Holland with Latvia was a very good one. Not only did we learn a lot and got inspired from each other, we also had a great week just spending time with the group. Good progress on the projects at day and interesting discussions at night. I was very satisfied with the (semi)end-results after just one week of cooperation. And participating in the Latvian midsummer festival was really a fantastic experience! I’m looking forward to the next part of the Exchange in Holland”

Sander Houtman (NL)

“The first step of the project was great. It was a good chance to meet all participants and exchange ideas. It was challenging for me (in a good way) to work with different kind of artists and meet different cultures (and subcultures).
I really hope that we gonna make something good in Amsterdam.”

Krišs Zilgalvis (LV)

City collage by Ashkan Honarvar (NL)

Read more about “Water. Sinking Cities.” at the project’s website.

Just to have an idea how great was the first exchange in Riga!

Other info, videos, photos and comments in the website: www.watersinkingcities.org

we are sinking

in p60

sink with us

http://watersinkingcities.org/

In the beginning of April I went to Žilina, Slovakia for the Changing room exchange. My expectations were only to see how it works and meet the people there, and with such expectations I could hardly get disappointed. The weather was getting warmer, the people were very kind, and soon I lost the feeling of being a tourist.

Park behind Stanica

In the centre I helped in conceptualizing and preparing art workshops for children, although I was more an observer while they were taking place, due to the language barrier. I recorded and edited activist actions of cyclists, and helped organize them (http://vimeo.com/11084149). I was also lucky to be able to go on a trip, where we looked for abandoned cinemas for the KinoBus festival, which will take place in September. With their EVS volunteer Jitka Sedláková, whom I met on the TEH meeting in Krakow, I prepared an exhibition of videos, dealing with the subject of fairytales, stories, and myths, which we opened shortly before my residency in Stanica finished. I also participated as an author, as the exhibition included my video work, which I created during my stay in Slovakia. My work also included other smaller jobs, like distributing flyers and posters, walking the dog, and intensive socializing with Stanica’s team. J

Kino Bus trip

I think the exchange was useful for me, since I got to see and experience the work process and organization in the chosen cultural centre. I met a lot of interesting people, and wish to continue cooperating with them in the future. A sort of production/programme exchange between Stanica and Pekarna is already taking place, actually. In April, Stanica’s band The Jerremy Franklin Wedding Band performed in Pekarna, and a light-design workshop took place in the same week (led by Tomaš Marny). Two dance performances were also planned as part of this exchange, but unfortunately had to be cancelled due to the injury of one of the dancers. The cancelled performances will therefore be presented in Pekarna in the autumn. In addition, three of the bands that work, practice, and perhaps even live in Pekarna – Nina Bulatovix, Coma Stereo and Vortex Magnolia – will visit Stanica in the end of August and perform there.

In September, we are preparing and exhibition of Czech illustrators in Maribor. The curator of the exhibition is Stanica’s EVS volunteer Paula Byrtusova. We also plan to bring (and expand) the video exhibition Fairy tale to Maribor.

I also learned how to sew books. That’s a useful thing.

Sewing books workshop

The exchange was a really pleasant experience for me and for sure I would recommend it to others. I seriously have nothing to complain about. I am up for another exchange right away… but it’s also possible that I had such a great time because Stanica is so great. <3

Stanica

Alte Feuerwache, Cologne

I have  arrived well in Koln. Kerstin, member of the board of Alte Feuerwache, welcomed me and lent me her bedroom.

The first thing we did when I arrived Sunday at the beginning of the evening, was go to the center. I discovered the outside by night and I enjoyed having a Kölsch at the restaurant.

Alte Feuerwache, Cologne

On Monday I had a meeting with Peter (the one responsible for the teen activities) who explained the organization and the activities of Alte Feuerwache to me. I visited all the buildings and met some artisans (wood, sculpture, metal, glass, gold…) in their workshops. The thing I noticed is that Alte Feuerwache has a strong social and political engagement.
On Tuesday I spent my morning with Yohanna and her teenage girls. They have a club especially for them at the last floor with a terrasse and a computer room. I used stencils to make postcards, teeshirts, bags with them,..

Alte Feuerwache, Cologne

On Wednesday it was shadow theater with the youngest. We draw halloween caracters and animated them behind white sheets. Parents came to watch the show at the end.
On Thursday I had a coffee with the teenage boys in their coffee room. They showed me videos and photos of the activities they had already done. Birgit, in charge of children activities, explained to me how they work in Alte Feuerwache. Their aim is really to support families and help children to blossom.
On Friday I took a train to Dusseldorf to meet Jochen, manager of a place called Zakk. We had a long discussion and we visited the whole place. He invited me to join a discussion group for an international seminaire in June 2010.

Bike rides, museums, discoveries of all kind (places, food, people,..) were also part of the experience.

It is the end of the week and it is time to rest and assimilate all the things I have done. This project was all about meeting, talking, and thinking alone and together. Things we don’t take time to do in our daily activities.

I’m Ieva, freshly baked student, who chose to continue her learning and finding path for a further future with a help of EVS.

So, eversince January 2010 I’ve been volunteer in an independent culture centre „Pekarna Magdalenske Mreže” in Maribor, Slovenia.

As all of volunteers I had my expectations and my frights, if reality will be same, but all in all I can say that I’m fully satisficed with my choice.

As for what I do here – I help organising and taking care of the concerts in the concert hall of my organisation,

that includes :

• learning to make friends with a sound mixer
• learning to play with the lights so the visitors don’t get blinded
• cooking for the bands  (it’s usually the same food, but at least I improve myself in cleaning dishes afterwards…)

I also make movie nights in the same hall - during the summer these nights will take place also outdoors  (doing this helped me improve my poor and chaotic organising skills, also working with photoshop, because posters have to be done, and have to be done as nicely as you can, so people actually show up, buuut till now they still look weird.  But probably that’s just my style, or at least that’s how I justify my skills ).

Sometimes I slip myself also into other small works done around „Pekarna” theritory –

• cleaning up sessions in our yard ( yes, now i can confess, I used to be one of the teenagers who litter around with no thinking, but now I can quite honestly say – DON’T DO THIS, THAT PISSES OFF QUITE NICE PEOPLE, WHO HAVE TO DO DIRTY WORK AFTER ALL OF YOU!)

sometimes helping with some events of other kind, for example

• „Maribajk” - project, when all the unneeded bikes around Maribor are gathered, repaired and later given for rent ( I did it only few times, but mostly because I’m just too much in love with vintage bikes gathered, that I’m scared I would just take one one day…or just cry out loud when it’s taken.

• Vegan Dinners ( monthly event, when every person interested can listen to some lecture about animal rights and taste some vegan food, also share their opinions with other animal rights activists and so on ) , and to be honest, I can say it’s one of the most loved event, because it includes free food, and we, poor EVS’s NEVER say no to free food (ok, kiddin)

• Just helping two other EVS with shooting „F*cking cooking show” ( I had done it only once, but OH, how proud I am about my directing work ). p.s. here’s the link to it. We shot it in an abandoned building, during my first days here. I still believe it was just our luck we came out of it fully alive and ok - http://vimeo.com/10537041
  

Also some nice work was done during „Volunteer Festival Maribor”.

I also have a show on local student’s radio „Marš”. It’s very nice, I can speak about whatever bothers me, people even listen. Or at least that’s how I calm myself down. We once made an experiment - put an interactive karaoke show during my time on radio - people could call and sing along some famous songs, or just beg for me to stop, but neither happened.

Huh.

While being here, I also fullfilled a little dream of mine – working at the bar. So now every time there’s „Solar Pulse” ( promoters, that do quite interesting concerts here ) I try to serve people with drinks as nicely as I can. It’s interesting and nice.Also great place to meet new people not spending your own money, not going out and not putting any other big pressure on it. So - double success it is!

I like my organisation, they’re very open – minded and supportive to whatever crazy ideas pop in my mind, even if they’re not quite connected with job I do there – I got colours to paint the disturbing white walls of my living space, also gained a cat, to keep apartment more alive. Of course, nobody also had yet killed me for disturbingly playing/ learning to play ukulele while I’m here. My next agenda would be to ask also for some carpets, but we’ll see what the boss says. (=

All in all I can just forward the saying that my friend once thold me, when I got tired and homesick : „Take it easy. You’re developing yourself with a speed of 1 year here is equal to 3 years back in your hometown”. And I can only agree to it.

Marian Söderholm at ufaFabrik, Berlin

My time at ufaFabrik and indeed in Berlin has sadly come to an end. Yesterday my colleagues and I celebrated our time together by having dinner at the children’s farm; a lovely end to a lovely stay. As many people would surely agree, ufaFabrik is a fantastic place full of creativity and I am very happy to have had the chance to work here for the past four months.

I have been saying goodbye to Berlin by cycling, celebrating and chilling during the last few days. And I have checked off the last couple of things on my “you’d be crazy to miss this in Berlin”-list: climbing up onto the green roofs of ufaFabrik (I’ve wanted to do that for ages…) and going to the open-air cinema in Kreuzberg. Plus I’ve experienced the madness of the 1st of May in Berlin. Those of you who have been here know what I mean. All in all, the circle has been closed and it’s time for me to pack my ever-so-slightly-too-big bags and go back to Sweden, where reports, seminars and graduation celebrations await.

I will most definitely be back to visit Berlin though and who knows, we may see each other again sooner than we know…

until then, see you all in Budapest!

xox

Marian

Hi there!

In this raining night, finally I’ve decided that is the time to present myself to this blog! But I’m an Italian lazy, so I’m going to start with the introduction that I sent to Florence some months ago..
I’m Monica from P60, this great podium for music, media and culture in Amstelveen (NL). I left Italy (this explains why I don’t like to write in English :-)) in September to live my first experience abroad at the age of 25 (better late than never!). Now I’m here in Netherlands with still my mind full of cliche’ about Dutch culture (cheese, bicycles, tulips..) but also with some enrichments and I’m trying to find a new style of life.  I live close to a forest and a lake (amazing view!) in a big house with other 2 evs volunteers (a Portuguese guy and a latvian girl). So we have the advantage to keep in touch with the nature and in the same time, just in a few minutes we’re close to Amsterdam!
In P60 we have our “international office” (actually it’s a multimedia room!) and we have a daily work and one by night.  Just right now, we’ re organizing “Water. Sinking Cities”, young artists’ exchange, that we’re proud to present for the first time during the next TEHmeeting in Budapest! So after this trip, there will be the next chapter with a lot of pictures!

I think it’s enough for the first time..now you know too much about me!
see you soon!

Monica