just like a mosaic, weaving tiny little pieces together one by one, the forthcoming festival brings together, confronts and reflects the issues that have been kept alive in our minds here in Bunker for the last couple of years. Namely, how to establish an art-based arena of ideas and opportunities, emerging through the intertwining of themes such as ecology, social inclusion, cooperation, spatial planning, solidarity economy or cultural policy.

The festival programme board stayed true to its decision not to impose any thematic structures on the festival in advance; instead of dictating our content-related expectations to an artist and thus placing him or her in a predefined sphere of action, we prefer maintaining fluid sensitivity and keeping an open door to the surprises and specifics of the current Zeitgeist. Genuine concern over what the future may bring could very well be defined as the underlying theme of the forthcoming festival performances, each assuming its own specific form, be it environment, notably nature, consumerism as lifestyle or historical memory.

Instead of walking the threaded path of the previous Mladi levi festivals in their accentuated interest for intimately personal individual stories, this year’s festival and its artists reveal a fascination with social relations and the engaged manner in which an individual is willing and capable of negotiating them. We are ourselves trying to find appropriate solutions for some of these issues by introducing a set of activities to the Tabor district, the fleeting nature of which – as we came to learn from the local inhabitants – was not only seen as lacking in character and identity, but was also short of greenery and called for a stronger social dimension. Cultural, artistic and educational players on the one hand – and individuals in our neighbourhood on the other – help us invest our efforts in trying to reawaken the sense of community by turning the problems to our advantage and making the most out of the potential offered by the neighbourhood.