This title is not just a simple verse from a song by the beautiful Nina Spirova. This verse is a motto and value. However, reality can often be different.

In her song “Speak of Skopje” she tells us how much we talk about loving our “home”. No matter what it means to us, the reality is that we often forget one thing, happiness comes from there. I wonder why that is. We are flooded with negative information about what is happening around us, we read constant tragic news every time we open our phones, but despite the black chronicle that surrounds us, there is one bright spot that tries to prevail. That bright spot is ourselves. 

In the last period, I find out that an increasing number of young people, artists, through their work and creativity create changes in what is home for them. In conversations with my peers, I constantly refute the theory that we cannot change anything, precisely by showing these creations. And of course not only in Skopje. I also start from myself, I find my urge in art and the creation that it enables us.

Especially due to the fact that I am studying theater art, which also requires a sense of community from me, everything that is created there is in the spirit of community. I have witnessed performances with young people who express what society is afraid to say, exhibitions of paintings, photographs that carry their own weight and story, a large selection of Macedonian music from local bands whose concerts you can feel the love with which the same thing was done. Young motivated people who go out to protests to keep culture, art, harmony.

All of us who create something that can be called art, and all those who support us and enjoy what is created, make our “collective home” a nicer place to live. So that it is not forgotten, so that wherever we go we know that we have left something behind. Even if it’s just an attempt.

Martina Danilovska