Photo: SKC u Blokadi
When I talk to my international friends and colleagues about the current protests in Serbia, they (completely legitimately) ask me about the structure and the goals of the protests. Among a couple of other clear demands established from the blockades’ start, students also demand that the Student Cultural Centre (SKC) in Belgrade to be reinstated to the University. Even writing out these words seems tragicomic, a Student cultural centre, yet without any affiliation to the University? As a direct consequence of 1968 Student protests, where the students demanded an open space to all for contemporary creative expression, SKC was founded in 1971, where some of the most significant Yugoslavian artists (such as Marina Abramović and Raša Todosijević) created and showcased their first works. However, the war-/inflation-/sanctions-/bombing-thorn 1990s’ Serbian state separated SKC from the University and turned it into a commercialised venue for cultural events which catered only to a specific portion of people and were not directed towards the youth nor programmed to give space for free artistic research and creative expression.
SKC might be the pinnacle of the state’s cultural theft that has been ongoing for decades in the capital and across Serbia. With less than1% of the state budget dedicated to culture and no free spaces for the upcoming artists and creatives to showcase their first artworks, rehearse, organise their first badly-tuned gigs, but also memorable and high-quality performances, the atmosphere among the cultural scene of the Serbian youth is the one of normalised lack of support and a constant search for the alternatives.
In February 2025, the students decided to shed light on the significance of their demands and, just as they did with the university campuses, they also blocked the Student Cultural Centre. Serving as a blueprint for other cultural spaces in the country, the liberation, rather than occupation, launched a new stratum of possibilities – ideological, creative, organisational. While talking to an Art History student, particularly active in the liberated SKC (true to their principles of collective rhetoric and the narrative of plurality, no names are disclosed in this text), the determined stance for liberating the culture was contagious. “Although the current state [of blockades] is not here to stay forever, the legacy will remain. None of us is the same ever since this started, and will not be after the protests are behind us. I hope these shifting experiences will systemically manifest in our generation through political changes”.
Photo: Ivana Todorović *The text on the banner translates to “Student spaces [belong] to Students”
Liberated spaces as physical manifestations of an individual’s participation in the community
Talking further about the role of liberating cultural spaces in fostering societal change, she emphasised that the students from different fields are coming together, each contributing with their own skills and learning on the spot. “Previously, there were no spaces for us to try out our knowledge and ideas in practical environments”. These joint efforts and practical solutions inferred from their theoretical backgrounds, most freely tested in the creative spaces, give hope in building their own future. “Until the liberation of SKC happened, I couldn’t even imagine myself having any say in creating the contemporary creative narratives and participating in the cultural scene directly.” The participation in programming the agenda, maintaining the space and managing the technical matters are all conducted by the students. “The most emphasised change that happened is the approach of us as individuals within the collective; the perspective of what it means and entails to belong to a collective, and which responsibilities such functioning strategies bear. Before, people saw the cultural spaces as places where they receive a certain cultural ‘service’, consume certain cultural content. Now, we see ourselves as direct participants in building and maintaining the community and scene. Reclaiming strategies might become a fruitful product of these protests for the future practices of running all kinds of community spaces. I experience the daily motion of happenings at SKC as a physical manifestation of an individual’s participation in the community.”
Care practices and (un)learning
The methodologies of collective decision-making and group efforts, which became one of the staples of these protests, come across as one of the strongest sentiments my interlocutors expressed. “We are learning and unlearning many things, as we voluntarily took up the responsibility of reclaiming the space, hence maintaining it. Unlearning entails shifting to more collective practices and stepping in for higher purposes rather than nurturing the sides more oriented towards individualistic development.” Besides having a substantial impact on the organisational aspect, these students, living their late teens during the pandemic and starting their university period in more socially alienated environment (post-pandemic), genuinely emphasised the effect of these alternative approaches towards community building on their personal life(style): “Mutual interactions are visibly stronger. My screen time in the past two months is barely two hours. The spaces are alive through the people’s constant mutual engagement”.
It was particularly fascinating to hear about affective aspects of the liberation of SKC and other spaces through the spatial lens: “We are learning deeply about the practices of care through collective effort, as well as through taking on spatial and temporal responsibility that naturally shifts people into thinking more collectively and for the benefit of the community – something we weren’t even aware we were lacking. These liberated spaces allow us to see that our engagement and activity have an impact and that each action has a domino effect on the rest of the community, making us more aware of our actions and making our thinking and functioning depend on the politics of care much more.” Serving as a blank canvas for taking care of (maintaining) the spaces, but also caring for each other’s impact and contributions to the programme, content, atmosphere and needs, it seems that the cultural spaces and university campuses are offerings of the previously mentioned unlearnings.”
The practices of self-management and collective decision-making are definitely something that existed before, but it seems like there was no chance, in the current system, for these practices to be applied. “With the reiteration of them, we realised that the alternative approaches are possible and that the collective practice might be something that will help our individual struggles and frustrations that we couldn’t find space to verbalise and vocalise.” After taking a couple of silent seconds, the Political Science student who mostly based his other thoughts on the ideological and analytical side of things, told me that maybe the collective struggle in which they are all direct participants, is also a collective healing process that no one was aware could be found in the blocked universities, (other students adding more tactile sentiments) the smell of instant noodles and plain biscuits (the most frequently donated food to the students encamping the university and cultural spaces).
Shifting the limits of possible
Again, the repurposing of the spaces completely shifted the students’ perception of seemingly impossibly sentimentalised architectural structures: “My biggest impressions lie in the change of the overall atmosphere within the university buildings and cultural venues, which I didn’t know I could feel so strongly about. Now, these are the places we feel directly responsible for; where we are teaching ourselves discipline, care and accountability. I’ve had moments where I felt like I was shifting the limits of what is possible on a physical level; I’m getting goosebumps even just by saying it. I see both the liberated cultural spaces and campuses as places for the development of the fight for a better society and societal responsibility.”
The fact that students created a platform for themselves to curate, create and design different creative outlets has caused more profound personal reflections and perceptions of their role within Serbian economically and systemically challenged society: ”What left one of the most significant marks on me [through participating in reclaiming the cultural spaces] is that I realised that changes are possible. I overcame my fear of the impossibility of actually doing what I love. I realised we can make things happen. Until now, my intrinsic desires and aspirations seemed to me like something unattainable and distant, whereas they now seem more tangible and potentially not as tangled among bureaucratic processes, rounds of elitist closed circles and a corrupt system. We now see that we can create what we want without necessarily having to take these steps”.
Another student reflected on the influence of their actions towards other groups of society: “The moment when I saw that we, students, managed to catalyse other groups, such as some trade unions, teachers, etc. who have worked in their sector for over 20 years and couldn’t empower themselves enough fully stand up, really gave me courage and made me more confident in fighting for a change as a collective, using the practices of self-management, liberation of culture and mutual understanding.”
Photo by Mihajlo Prodan
Ideological questions in redefining the cultural scene & bottom-up knowledge production
Among art exhibitions, concerts and panel discussions, the cultural spaces run by students also serve as think tanks – whether through the programmed content or the natural course of events that foster ideological and policy-related discussions.
Actively participating in programming the agenda of liberated SKC, the student tells me: “We noticed a wider need for democratising culture through taking over these spaces, which tackled many previously untackled topics of accessibility of culture. We want to be the driving force for a change in this direction on a wider scale. As an art history student, the cultural spaces in liberation are personally fulfilling for me because I am applying my affinities in practice and creating something real. However, we are also directly faced with the political and ideological questions through practice: how to approach the commercialisation of culture? How to manifest our values? How to address our mutual ideological differences and collectively move forward towards the established goals? How can cultural spaces be redefined as such, and how can they be a direct participant in societal change?”
With the initiation of these ideological questions that go beyond the walls of cultural venues and their role in the current situation, it is evident that the students’ approach towards the role of cultural spaces is rather holistic and entails a high level of critical stance. Expressing that the sentiment is for sure fueled by the current intense atmosphere, a student tells me she thinks these spaces should be treated as protest spaces and that they should foster further radicalisation of ideas in society. In fact, “a cultural space should show [in its structure and programme] that it is an element directly connected to socio-political matters.”
On my question of how disagreements could potentially be tackled, the answer comes with visible experience facing this obstacle in the last months but is confidently worded: the different ideas need to be actively communicated and discussed in order to accept the plurality of voices present among the communities, thus avoiding under- or misrepresentation.
Social bonds as a strategy for future activation
Coming to the end of my conversation with each of these students, we also came to the imagining of the possibilities of the aftermath, and discussed whether the methodologies of liberated cultural spaces are possible to be applied in future, and in wider purposes. The power of the collective still echoes as the main affect. “The aftermath will definitely be impacted by the numerous connections made during these times; the social capital is something that cannot be taken away that easily, thus a powerful weapon for future (post-blockade) functioning. After this amount of time and energy invested by all of us, I think it is impossible to simply continue on the same path and have the same perspective on socio-political matters and our role in them as we had before these protests.”
Listening to these highly personal (in the most valuable way) testimonies from the students currently liberating the contemporary student/youth creative scene, what remains the main impression is that certain methodologies rooted in collective effort have been developed, and these could serve not only as a legacy of this revolutionary era for the Serbian youth, but also as a blueprint for the future changes beyond cultural sector.
Drawing a parallel to Walter Benjamin’s The Author as a Producer, rooting the creative work towards direct fostering of socio-political discussion, the risk of culture in the society being too elitist, ‘intellectual’ or inaccessible decreases. On the contrary, this approach (indirectly) invites all members of the society to consume and participate in the culture. By reclaiming the culture through their horizontal structure and collective struggle for a brighter future, the Serbian students surely are the authors and the producers of a creative and societal liberation.
References
The Author as A Producer, Walter Benjamin, 1934.