Bunker is a NGO that produces contemporary performances, organizes discursive forums and educational programmes and produces an international performing arts festival Mladi Levi. Since 2004, Bunker manages a contemporary performing arts space Old Power Station in Ljubljana.
Bunker is a NGO for the realization and organization of cultural events. Bunker produces and presents contemporary theatre and dance performances, organizes different workshops and other educational programmes with a special focus on cultural and artistic education, participates in or leads numerous international projects, organizes international discursive forums and discussion evenings, and produces one of the most prominent international contemporary performing arts festivals – the Mladi Levi Festival.
Since the year 2004, Bunker programmes and manages the inspirational space of The Old Power Station in Ljubljana. The Old Power Station is a space for contemporary perfroming arts. It is buzzing with activities: several groups use it as their rehearsal venue; it is a place for different workshops, which range from cultural management to dance techniques, while in the evening, the power station is a venue for various contemporary performances and other multimedia events. The programme in the Old Power Station is a combination of international performances, presented in the frame of numerous festivals, as well as a selection of interesting Slovene contemporary artists. The red thread of all events in The Old Power Station is the desire to explore and move the boundaries of the aesthetic and the expected, as well as the desire for engagement in the local and global environment. Bunker has been devoted to producing artists dealing with the themes of the environment and climate change for many years through the international project Imagine 2020 – Art and Climate Change. And in the future years Bunker will explore these ideas through the engagement in the ACT project.
“Bunker’s engagement in ACT is all about bringing together a wider community of artist, activists and cultural workers not only to point out and reflect on social and climate injustice, but also join forces in common attempts to find new solutions to old problems.”Nevenka Koprivšek
International festival Mladi Levi is one of the more prominent annual events of the Bunker Institute, bringing the most current stage performers from all over the world to Ljubljana every end of the summer, since 1998. It bears a mark of a demanding artistic profile, placed within the arena of contemporary progressive theatre and takes pride in its reputation for discovering young talents. The Festival has a distinctive atmosphere, marked with creativity and vibrant spirit, curious audience and social nature.
After the Collection Europe (ACT) project developed last year at the Mladi Levi 2021 festival, Škart, the pensioners from the Ljubljana Centre Retirement Home, and Bunker, gathered again for a workshop dedicated to environmental issues – endangered bird species. The working methodology still includes drinking coffee together, as well as a visit to the Ljubljana Marshes and a meeting with the experts from DOPPS – Birdlife Slovenia. A mural will be created on the wall of the Ljubljana Centre Retirement Home, which will remind us of the beauty of birds and the beauty of daily gatherings that are disappearing in time.
Raw materials around the world are becoming increasingly difficult to find; some are already running out, prompting large mining companies to turn to the depths of the sea. It is said that only about ten percent of the seabed has been explored – the potential of its discovery seems endless, and the desire for raw materials unstoppable. Four kilometres below sea level, a mining robot of the Belgian company Deme-Gsr scrapes the seabed in search of rare metals. On another ship, an international team of marine biologists closely monitors the operation. On board the third ship, the Rainbow Warrior, Greenpeace activists protest wildly. What are the implications of this possible future industry?
Multispecies Landscape is a two-year artistic research on alternative ways of practicing relationships with the environment and diverse bodies that are part of the ecosystems in which we operate and are being transformed. It understands the environment as the process that emerges from numerous relationships and tries to look for methods for overcoming binary oppositions such as nature and culture, dead and alive, etc. The research inspired by the concept of the holobiont as an object of thought that disables thinking through individual categories, but rather focuses on the body as a porous environment of various organisms that are enabling life.