Between 5-7th October Macedonian group of youngsters had a privilege to take part in project COOLture – New Trends, New Stories in Belgrade, Serbia. Project was implemented by The Municipality of Vračar and NGO BUM in cooperation with partners from Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Belgium, Slovenia and Macedonia. This project is realized with the support of the Europe for Citizens Programme of the European Union. The main goal of the project is to increase the accessibility of culture by promoting the mobility of artists and arts in the region of Southeast Europe. Through this project, organizers wanted to encourage young people to start visiting cultural events outside their own cities and countries and to see culture as one of the reasons why it is good to meet people belonging to another nation, religion or culture.

At the beginning we were welcomed by President of the Municipal Assembly of Vračar – Mihailo Grupković. He emphasized the enormous importance that cultural exchange and mobility of artists have in the process of  empowerment of cooperation among the people of Southeast Europe. Later on Danijela Maljević, President of NGO BUM reminded that main goal within COOLture project was to enable young people to get active, learn about different cultures in the framework of the youth exchange process. The last speech was delivered by Nikola Kolya Božović, visual artist and a member of the steering committee of the October Salon. Projects such as COOLture represent a unique opportunity for young people from all over the Region to visit exhibitions within the October Salon and get familiar with the current trends in contemporary art.

The large number of young people have gathered to learn about the European values, heritage, art and culture through different team activities. In the end each group had to make video to sum up what we discussed before. During evening we visited October Salon where we could see the exibitions from the best contemporary artists including Yoko Ono. It was also good occasion to make new contacts and friends. Our weekend in Belgrade passed really fast so there was no enough time to explore more the city but we have seen the main touristic points.

Paulina Gołębiowska