Artistic programs and artists working on borders of performance art, dance, theatre and new media are the main focus of our program, expressing its plurality in the quest to a fairer and more open society.
Domino is a non-governmental, non-profit organisation based in Zagreb, Croatia, that has as its mission the questioning of the traditional and the transformation of oppressive norms in transitional societies through culture, media, public policies, education and collaboration with local and international organisations. The vision of Domino is that in the society there is a continuous recognition of norms that disables the freedom of art and, more specifically, queer expression; which in its nature is subversive yet peaceful. This expression is mostly visible trough the independent art scene and warrants the broadening of the borders and the critical questioning of existing social norma. We feel that it is necessary to make a social environment that enables the independent culture to manifest itself through different forms and stakeholders. The organisation realizes its mission through four major programs: culture and arts, media, education and politics. Within ACT, we want to continue our long-standing engagement with identity politics, broaden our support for independent artists improving the working conditions for their creations and continue our efforts to decentralise artistic programs in seven Croatian regions while strenghtening culturally marginalised landscapes. At the same time, we wish to further develop and continue offering quality capacity building programs for students and cultural professionals alike, while sharing and exchanging know-how, experiences, practices and concerns within the ACT network.
“To understand and explain how there is nothing in the world, but nothing, other than the Society of the whole living system that we call the planet Earth, seems to be the most important political idea that contemporary art needs to deal with. ”Željko Zorica - Šiš
In this Night of Performances, the Croatian artist Siniša Labrović performs “Pecanje”. It’s a durational performance that underscores the absurdity, but also persistence as opposed to a prospective hopelessness. Everything seems wrapped-up and ready-to-use, as well as ‘safe’, but the performance still insists on testing the limits, to surpass the impossible. This performance hopes for a miracle.
Sightings-Sitings is a project that explores the locations of the North Sea, the area between La Manche and the Norwegian Sea. The initial methods of movement and observation are walking, walking on seabed during low tide, observing the sky, stars, tides, architecture, organisms, meteorological forecasts. The artists record movement with photography, sound, text, bodies. Thus, they collect textual material, experiment with narrative structure, voice and agency, explore potential vocabulary of non-human subjects, record random human statements, write down everyday life and experiment with multi-subject positions, unclear positions, undefined, non-subjects.
The play Correction is Inspired by conversations with the inhabitants of Darda in Baranja. This performance is a testimony and analysis of the paradigmatic problem of life in still post-war Croatia. Thus, the play deals with intimate relationships and broken ties between people. Also, it observes them in the context of political and sociological reflections of everyday life. Through a theatrical response to the documentary material, CORRECTION will try to establish its own specific response to the painful place of the context in which we live, which is currently additionally affected by the corona-crisis.
In Zagreb, the Night of Performances takes over the Ganz Event New Perforations. The programme includes a wide variety of works and Croatian artists, such as Milijana Babić , Centar Za Ženske Studije Rijeka, Petra Mrsa, Antonio Grgić, Vladimir Novak, and Vlasta Delimar I Milan Božić.
In Rijeka, the Night of Performances includes works from the Croatian artists, Petra Mrša and Antonio Grgić.
Keinberg deals with the moral and economic collapse of a small industrial community. The performance is based on the research of real case studies of several cities. One in particular is a small town on the very north of Sweden, whose inhabitants are mainly working class employed in the local mine. Thus, the mine’s long term exploitation endangers the very existence of the community. The local authority’s solution is to move the entire town elsewhere – to literally copy it and transfer it to another place, inhabited by an indigenous community that lives in accordance with nature.
After Marko Marković performed Delirium interruptum on January 9 in front of the Croatian National Theater in Zagreb, on January 15, in Vukovar, we will continue with the project Future of Political Performance, where the artist Nina Bačun will present her work Sketch 1 IDEAS. The idea of sliding authorship, transferring responsibility or taking over it, it’s the sub-topic of the mentioned work, which is set up within the expert advocacy panel ‘EU as a forgotten peace project?’.
“SADiti JE BITNO” is an art installation by Lucija Žuta that will be installed on the Square of Victims of Fascism in Zagreb, from 19 to 24 May, as part of the program to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Joseph Beuys, one of the most influential and controversial artists of the 20th century. This installation is produced by the association Domino, and as part of the project Visual construction of the political: 100 Beuys, jointly designed by Goethe-Institut Kroatien and Subversive Festival.
In cooperation with the Association of Tara Citizens (Ličko Petrovo Selo, Croatia), women responsible for preserving and transmitting the tradition of handicrafts and Lika’s sense of humor, there will be an Ethno-Queer Trip to Ličko Petrovo Selo. Participants have the opportunity through the workshop programme to get directly acquainted with the rich tradition of handicrafts and the phenomenon of nakurnjak. In addition to a knitting workshop and socializing with local women, the trip also includes a tour of the Plitvice Lakes and learning about local history and customs. The trip is part of the Ethno Under the Belt program, which will continue on May 29 with a guided tour at the Ethnographic Museum in Zagreb.
The second part of the Ethno Below the Belt programme happens in cooperation with the Ethnographic Museum in Zagreb. The interested audience will have the opportunity to participate in a guided museum tour Ethno Below the Belt, with the guidance of the museum expert, Željka Jelavić, and the founder of the Tara Association, Sonja Leka. The elements of traditional culture are introduced with a special focus on sexuality and sexual practices and the elements of clothing associated with them. Special attention will be paid to the protection of the male genitalia.
Perforations Festival, 2021 – the thirteenth edition of the festival of performing arts and independent author productions of contemporary theatre, dance and performance will be held in Zagreb, in the Zagreb Dance Center and other locations, from June 29 to July 3, 2021. The festival will program, during July, within the framework of the Network of Performing Arts, take place in Dubrovnik, Koprivnica, Rijeka and Zadar. The new festival edition includes numerous theatre performances, talks with artists, workshops, an artistic trip to a nature park, an urban safari, as well as another exciting Night of Performances (July 2).
The Zagreb Summer Lab was organized by Domino, as part of the European project ACT: Art, Climate, Transition. It took place from June 30 – July 3, 2021 in Zagreb. On the topic of “Natural disasters: Lessons from two Croatia earthquakes in 2020”, artists and activists shared their experience and knowledge.
Lokomotiva, partner of the project ACT: Art, Climate, Transition, invited Ivana Dragšić, a sociologist and civil operator working in the area of urban commons and governance, with a focus on ecofeminism, culture, politics and institutions, to be part of the artistic residency in Zagreb.
As part of the Perforations Festival, a very special night forest expedition will take place. From Friday 2.7. on Saturday 3.7, those interested will have the opportunity to participate in the ecological-artistic project of the French artist Thierry Boutonnier, which includes camping and spending the night in the woods, learning about mushrooms and dreams. This collective experience will give participants a dual perspective on mushrooms: from a scientific point of view, they will learn about the indispensable role of mushrooms in the forest ecosystem, and from the artistic side they will have the opportunity to make mushroom handicrafts.
The project will be implemented as a simultaneous mirror experience in France and Croatia. The Croatian expedition team consists of the artist Azra Svedružić, in charge of implementing the Thierry Boutonnier concept in Croatia, and two mycologists Ivana Kušan and Neven Matočec.
This year’s edition of Night of Performance includes works by Nikolina Majdak, Igor Zenzerović, Mirjana Đan, Božidar Katić, and Josipa Bubaš. A guided tour will be organized to guide the audience through all five performances of the selected artists.
Communities respond to natural disasters with immediate actions of solidarity and mutual support. The Zagreb Summerlab artistically explores ideas and practices of care and solidarity around the 2020 Zagreb and Petrinja Earthquakes.
This year’s edition of Night of Performance took place on July 2nd at different locations in Zagreb, and within the framework of the Performing Arts Network. The program will also take place in Dubrovnik, Koprivnica, Rijeka and Zadar. In Koprivnica, on July 10, Nikolina Majdak (I support), Josipa Bubaš (Beauty) and Mirjana Đan (Serb, Gypsy, Fag and Muslim) will participate.
With Dance performances by Bruno Isaković and Mia Zalukar – Shake it off / Filodrammatica, and Šimun Stankov, Una Štalcar-Furač, Espi Tomičić – Arbajt / Exportdrvo. Night of performances by: Igor Zenzerović – Study of one hug / Promenade, Andrej Zbašnik – Postman / Promenade, Josipa Bubaš – Beauty / Gallery Filodrammatica.
The Perforations Festival and the Night of Performance, after the Zagreb edition held from June 29 to July 3, and after successful guest appearances in Dubrovnik, Koprivnica and Rijeka, travels to Zadar, the last location of this year’s festival.
Networking as part of the ACT project is an important segment, in which partners are sharing and discussing the activities’ state of the art. This meeting was organised and hosted by Culturgest, Lisbon with participation of other project partners and representatives from: Arts Admin/London, Bunker/Ljubljana, Kaaitheater/Brussels, COAL/Paris, Domino/Zagreb, Kampnagel/Hamburg, NTIL/Riga, Theater Rotterdam/Rotterdam, and Lokomotiva /Skopje.
From February 11 to 25, 2022, a selection of some of the most prominent actions and happenings from the sphere of political performances in Croatia, from the sixties to the present, will arrive at Laub — House for People and Art. The exhibition “This is not my world” is named after Željko Jerman’s intimate slogan from 1976, and gathers over 30 artists who recorded and reacted to regime changes with political gestures, from resistance to cultural and social conformity at the end of the 1960s, to the erasure of alternative culture during the reign of Tuđman, until historical revisionism in modern Croatia.
Exhibition based on the History of Political Performance project of the Domino Association, with the aim of becoming a comprehensive source of political criticism of domestic performances in Croatia. The project also traces the development of a strong peace and human rights movement, the emergence of the queer movement and its clear development into today’s struggle for trans rights, an initiative to defend public spaces, freedom of the media, the continuous struggle for women’s and minority rights rights, and more recent resistance to neoconservatism and populism.
The nineteenth Queer Zagreb Season 2021 will be held this year from May 26 to 29 at the Zagreb Dance Center, Pogon Jedinstvo and on the streets of Zagreb. The audience will have the opportunity to watch and participate in a rich cultural program characterized by ethno-queer aesthetics, queer bodies and of queer history. During the four festival days, a series of performances, workshops, lectures, two new titles from Domino’s publishing house will be presented, and an ethno-queer trip to Ličko Petrovo Selo will be organized.
The relationship to nature and the relationship between modern life and past times are the basis of Mija Štark’s first author’s play. In the foreground is the search for links with the origins of man in nature, the recognition of elements of pre-Christian culture and agricultural preconceptions of the world related to the cult of the earth and fertility rites. Transforming over time, these remained at least fragmentarily in the customs of the community, world view or language.
Dealing with the position of a stranger. A foreigner within the state apparatus. Within the profession. Within your own family. On stage. An executive search for a place that could resist all the unknowns that this stranger brings with him. A place where the body could be pressed. Merge. Grow together. At least for a moment, forget about your own impermanence. A place they could call home.
In a joint performance, Vesna Stilinović and Vlasta Delimar connect their similarities and opposites through elemental eros. However, through tender friendship, they do not want to be one, they want to be two. Vesna is 77 years old and Vlasta is 66. Vesna is an actress and Vlasta is a performer. They decide that their aging will be a successful, active and healthy aging, because aging is not deterioration, but an increase in one’s own potential.
The 1st performance reading of the Zagreb Fair is an urban ideogram through a series of performance propositions, some of which are participatory and co-performed by the audience. The Zagreb Fair creates haptic dialogues on its monumental and wounded forms in groups around the narratives of the city’s (sometimes traumatic) history.
Burdened with a load of woven baskets, the artist walks in circles around the Dolac market (Zagreb), going up and down the stairs, while balancing the installation on her head. Baskets are empty. The plot has no end, because it goes in a circle. This walk is dedicated to burden women, who in the recent past carried heavy loads of 5, 10 or 15 and more kilograms on their heads every day, often to and from the market. How much did all the burdensome women who preceded us bequeath us and what are our burdens?
In the dictionary, words are defined by the meaning known to speakers of that language. Creative use of language changes or enhances the basic meaning of words. This is especially evident in literature when words in friction with other words affect each other. Politics is an activity that should strive to organize society for the benefit of as many members of that society as possible, but we are witnessing how politics, not only through actions but also through the “creative” use of language, often does the exact opposite. Our actions and words are at odds, so over time words no longer mean what they should mean by definition, which also affects value judgments and the experience of reality. That is why dictatorial regimes, as well as some nominally democratic ones, often perversely change the language and meaning of words.
In all nine of this year’s femicides, there were witnesses to the act itself or incidents that preceded the femicide, and the question arises whether they were victims or accomplices. This installation raises the same question. How much we turn a blind eye to devastating statistics when they are just statistics, with special emphasis on the fact that the victims are women – women who continue to fight for their rights and equality in Croatia. Unequal in life, unequal in death.
“Wall applause house laughter” performance is dedicated to the earthquakes that devastated Bania in December 2020. The house is our cosmic womb, a place of safety and permanence, a refuge from the immense sum of external uncertainties, a point of order in chaos. The wall is a border and a dividing line, once personal, but in the history of mankind it is often similar to a house and its function. A large part of popular psychology and self-help literature convinces us that the experience of reality has very little to do with that “reality” and more to do with our decision on how to interpret that reality. And although we can reasonably claim that the earthquake in Bania is a tragedy, nothing prevents us from applauding the earthquake and laughing in the face of those in charge of the house of our community. And to build a wall in their honor.
Through a guided walk from the Bikčević path on Medvednica to the author’s temporary installation – a forest cabin, Tin Dožić publicly presents the research carried out so far as part of the work ‘Dromomania adriatica’. The basic research and working method is dromomania, which comes from the Greek word “dromos” and means running, and denotes a need to travel, that is, to change one’s place of residence. In this sense, Dromomania turns away from homogenizing forms of representation of the environment, either through tourism or geo-information systems (GIS).
How do we see Croatia after 30 years? Vlad Gotovac’s speech, the ZET orchestra and the cake of the Republic of Croatia await you from September 15 to 18 at various locations in the metropolis. Bruno Isaković and Zvonimir Dobrović have gathered an impressive number of artists who will offer us their pictures and versions of this great birthday of Our Lady. It will be cheerful, critically aware and witty. And we will see how beautiful or ugly she is…
In life, we are constantly faced with various crises, personal, business, social, political, refugee, health, existential, etc. Behind all of them lurks one that is perhaps the biggest in the history of mankind: environmental. However, despite its seriousness, we run out of energy to deal with the new crises that keep appearing, while we persistently try to maintain the existing situation… forgetting, at the same time, that a crisis can represent an extraordinary period in which ideas that otherwise seem impossible, become possible. The key question is: what ideas?
Domino brings the Škart collective to Zagreb, who together with the members of the association NEPRAKTIKNI ŽENE from Belgrade are running a workshop on designing brick walls. The workshop “Thoughts and thoughts on the canvas are compressed” is intended for elderly people, and is held in the Home for the elderly “Park” in Pešćenica. Verses for everyday use try to give a new shape and life to traditional brick walls and send loud messages of not giving up for the lack of public spaces.
A Night of Performances will be held in Medica, in Zagreb – an event that presents performances, spatial and audiovisual installations, experimental forms with light, sound, and movement, as well as various spatial interventions and participatory projects by artists and art collectives that are selected in 2023 through a public call – on Feminism in Art, Community and Practice. The artists and art collectives that will present their works are: SoXe (Sonja Leboš and Ksenija Kordić), žuž (Dora Fodor and Hugo Baranger), Nikolina Butorac, Ana Katulić and Irena Boćkai, Igor Zenzerović and Lucija Žuti.
Working conditions, opportunities for young people, dependence on the independent scene, activism and resistance, institutionalization, the street, the everyday life of performance artists, performativity in everyday life… all these and similar topics will be discussed by Ksenija Kordić, academic painter and multimedia artist, and Mia Štark, multimedia artist, together with moderator Juraj Šantorić.
Heroes is a new dance performance by Bruno Isaković and Mia Zalukar in which they enter a universe full of intimate questions about the meaning of everything we know and, especially, everything we don’t know, that awaits us in the future. The title of the play is significant not only because it suggests it finds its initial point of reference in the character, work and mythology of David Bowie, but because it opens up the possibility of the existence of heroes in some other dimensions where the show takes us. Needing to escape the avalanche of information we face every day and the responsibility towards the threats that currently cast a shadow on our planet, we turn to the stars and escape into space.
Based on motives from Jason Hickel’s Less is More and Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing The Mushroom at the End of the World
In life, we are constantly facing different crises – be it personal, professional, social, political, refugee, health, existential, etc. Behind them lurks maybe the biggest one in the history of humankind: the environmental. But in spite of its magnitude we are losing energy to solve other, ever new crises, trying to just restore the current situation … and forgetting that a crisis can be an exceptional time when seemingly impossible ideas become possible. The key question is: Which ideas? Those that would ensure more security, protection, health and well-being to everyone, or those meant to make the already unimaginably rich even richer? In Crises, Žiga Divjak and his team tackle all these questions and explore the human capacity for collaboration and the need to re-discover natural world not as a source but as our kin.
Performance as a genre canonically belongs to the spectrum of art, and associations often refer to activism and exhibitionism. However, what are the philosophical and theoretical dimensions of performance? What do we take as reference points for its definition, and how much space is left in the existing setting for areas outside of art? What information do performances provide us and what kind of worlds can they open for us? All these and similar questions will be answered by Sonja Leboš, Josipa Bubaš, Igor Zenzerović in a conversation with moderator Juraj Šantorić.