Baruna Trenka 11
10000 Zagreb
Croatia
- Arts
Kooperativa – Regional Platform for Culture is as a non-governmental, non-party, and non-profit association of legal entities, that is, a regional network of organisations working in the field of independent culture and contemporary art in Southeast Europe (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, North Macedonia, Slovenia, Montenegro, Kosovo and Croatia). Kooperativa currently has 40 active member organisations, whose delegates form the General Assembly that meets annually to discuss future steps and actions. The platform also holds monthly informal Forums with members to address pressing issues regarding the sector. The General Assembly acts as the principal decision-making body with the Management Board chosen to make and execute decisions between Assemblies. Current board members are Davor Mišković (Croatia), Luka Knežević-Strika (Serbia), Jasmina Bilalovikj (North Macedonia), Peter Cerovšek (Slovenia) and Vullnet Sanaja (Kosovo). Kooperativa was first registered in Zagreb, where it has been holding office for 10 years and sharing a space with several civil society organisations. Since March 2023 Kooperativa has registered in Skopje, North Macedonia where it has a newly established branch. Currently, Kooperativa employs 4 people in Croatia - Tihana Pupovac (coordinator), Marija Krnić (program coordinator), Ena Grabar (financial administrator) and Dejan Košćak (project manager), and 1 person in North Macedonia - Tijana Ana Spasovska (program coordinator). The main sources of funding include public and private entities working in the SEE region such as: Kultura nova foundation, Rockefeller brothers fund, Balkan Trust for Democracy, Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia as well as the City of Zagreb. Kooperativa advocates for a sustainable financial mechanism for regional cultural cooperation, in adition to that it runs capacity building programs, supports to program exchange, research and publishing pertaining to cultural policies built through bottom-up processes as well as different joint actions supporting the development of cultural cooperation in SEE.
Mission Kooperativa is developing and strengthening cultural cooperation in South-East Europe, and is committed to improving working conditions within the civil sector in contemporary arts and culture. Founded with the aim to advocate for a sustainable financial instrument for regional collaboration of independent culture, Kooperativa provides mechanisms of peer-to-peer support, knowledge exchange, collective actions and program cooperation. Vision Sustainable and dynamic regional collaboration where independent culture is a relevant agent for social change and a democratic society. HE MAIN OBJECTIVES OF THE PLATFORM ARE: ~ to ensure the framework for a long-term and sustainable project cooperation and programme exchange between the advocates of independent culture in the region ~ to strengthen the capacities of organizations through the transfer of good practice and knowledge ~ to empower the actors contributing to the development of cultural and other policies that will introduce significant changes in cultural systems of the countries of the region ~ development of contemporary and new artistic practices, critical public discourse and innovative organizational models
Within the program lines of the Clubture network, the Kooperativa community has, before being formally established and registered, been working on building cooperation and connecting organisations from SEE. From 2005 to 2007, the first phase of the program exchange and collaboration between organisations in SEE was carried out, within which thirty-three public events took place. From 2009 to 2011, together with regional organisations, a public consultation process Exit Europe was conducted, with a focus on critical consideration of parallel processes of defining European cultural policies and enlargement of the Union, which resulted in the development and advocacy of the Position Document for Policy Recommendations at EU, national and local levels. After its formal establishment in 2012, Kooperativa focuses on advocating for a sustainable support mechanism for cooperation between organisations in the region, on the exchange of programs between independent culture organisations, and on their strengthening and networking. Since 2016, a small-scale crisis support mechanism Regional Cultural Action Laboratory (Reg Lab) has been introduced through which over 20 campaigns and initiatives in the fields of advocacy and activism have been supported by now. In 2017 Kooperativa conducted a pilot program of regional cooperation and exchange, through which 11 collaboration projects were supported, engaging 40 organisations from SEE. Since 2021, the support by the Creative Europe Cooperation in the Western Balkans program enabled the continuation and widening of regional program cooperation and exchange through Twinning and Mentorship programs as well as widening the scope of the Reg Lab mechanism. Our activities and programs are also socially engaged, based on a research approach, and are the result of cooperation between organisations with a long history of independent culture activism, critical consideration of the socio-political context and engagement in local communities.
As a network operating in 7 countires from the SEE region Kooperativa brings with it not just the contacts, but also the know-how and good practices which were fostered by the civil society sector working in the arts and culture in SEE. Operating also as a living document of the institutional innovations which were fostered by the civil society sector in arts and culture through many years of bottom-up advocacy processes, Kooperativa has an added value of being the space for joint actions, mutual rethinking of the framewroks for national and regional cultural policies as well a valuable source of knowledge about independent cultural and artistic production and the specific needs of the sector. At the same time, the strong focus on cultural cooperation, buidling bridges and forging friendships as the core principles of any cultural and artistic work bring another added value to the processes of democratization, reconciliation and peacebuilding which are central not only to the local context in Croatia but the region as well. Lastly, Kooperativa is also dedicated to cross-sectoral work, especially across civil-socitey sectors and the engagement of civil society actors in the transformation and democratizaion of our societies, and can through exchanges of good practices significantly contribute to strengthening the position of civil society in Croatia and beyond.
As a network dedciated to fostering cooperation across geographies and sectors join the ALF network aligns with the core values and principles of Kooperativa's work. We strongly believe that it is only by forging connections, collaborations and friendships across borders and regions that true social transformation can occur and that culture is on of the pillars of these processes. We have been following the work of ALF and have members who are members of ALF and strongly believe that we could strongly contribute to the continous preservation of the core values of dialougue and exchange that ALF represent.