Shadow Casters () is a non-profit organization from

Zagreb Zagreb ( ) is the capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Croatia#List of cities and towns, largest city of Croatia. It is in the Northern Croatia, north of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the ...

(

Croatia Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a country in Central Europe, Central and Southeast Europe, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. It borders Slovenia to the northwest, Hungary to the northeast, Serbia to the east, Bosnia and Herze ...

) working as an international artistic and production platform for interdisciplinary cooperations in

intermedia Intermedia is an art theory term coined in the mid-1960s by Fluxus artist Dick Higgins to describe the strategies of interdisciplinarity that occur within artworks existing between artistic genres. It was also used by John Brockman to refer to ...

arts in urban context. It was founded in 2002 by artists

Boris Bakal Boris Bakal (born September 18, 1959 in Zagreb) is a theatre/film director and actor. Biography Boris Bakal was born in Zagreb, Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (now the Republic of Croatia) He was a visiting scholar/lecturer and resea ...

and Željko Serdarević, with Katarina Pejović, Stanko Juzbašić, Vanja Žanko,

Srećko Horvat Srećko Horvat (born 28 February 1983) is a Croatian philosopher, author and political activist. The German weekly '' Der Freitag'' called him "one of the most exciting voices of his generation" and he has been described as a "fiery voice of diss ...

, Sandra Uskoković, Leo Vukelić and other collaborators. Since 2006 they are a Clubture Network member. Shadow Casters initially started as a project of ''Orchestra Stolpnik'' in Bologna in 2001. As an organization it is focused on

intercultural dialogue Intercultural dialogue (ICD) builds upon the concept of ''dialogue'', which refers to at least two people holding a conversation. And it builds upon the term ''intercultural'', which is typically used to refer to people communicating across differen ...

, creating projects and platforms for cultural exchanges between Croatian and international artists and art professionals, and questions concepts of individual and

collective identity Collective identity or group identity is a shared sense of belonging to a group. This concept appears within a few social science fields. National identity is a simple example, though myriad groups exist which share a sense of identity. Like ma ...

. Its projects encourage discussion about the nature and contradictions of the ongoing

globalization Globalization is the process of increasing interdependence and integration among the economies, markets, societies, and cultures of different countries worldwide. This is made possible by the reduction of barriers to international trade, th ...

processes and deals with social, political and cultural topics that point to important problems in society.

Key works, topics and poetics

Shadow Casters realized a number of domestic and international projects creating performative, educational, multimedia or socially engaged (most often) time-based works and questioning relations between man and space: as a study of cities, as poetic-detective urban journeys ''Shadow Casters''; as an interweaving of the material space of the performance and the real time of the actor with the virtual space and the delayed time of the film theater in the trilogy based on

Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a novelist and writer from Prague who was Jewish, Austrian, and Czech and wrote in German. He is widely regarded as a major figure of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of real ...

named ''Process_City (Process_in_Progress, Ex-position, Vacation From History)''; as an entry into the microcosm of a skyscraper and a multidimensional discovery of its past, present and future ''Čovjek je Prostor: Vitić_pleše'', a multimedia archive of urban events that become the tool for studying the hypertextuality of space Re-collecting City/Re-collecting Time; theater trilogy ''On togetherness'' (''Explicit Contents, ®evolution: Master Class, Male/Female-Female/Male''), multimedia installation ''History of Vacation'', etc. Retrospective exhibition ''All in All 20'' () in Zagreb, presented key projects and concepts from past 20 years of work in playful and interactive way.

Productions

In first 20 years over 150 artists from more than 50 countries participated in projects realized and presented at festivals and events in Zagreb, Dubrovnik, Bologna, Graz, Ljubljana, Pisa, Belgrade, Marseille, Leiden, Genoa, Podgorica and New York, in cooperation with partners (Urban Festival, Days of Croatian Film, Eurokaz Festival, MI2 Institute,

Art workshop Lazareti The Art Workshop Lazareti (; ARL) in Dubrovnik, Croatia, is an independent cultural center for contemporary art and performing arts venue that hosts artists, theorists, writers, activists and promotes an active and investigative approach to conte ...

and Karantena Festival, Croatia; Exodus Festival and Modern Gallery, Slovenia; CinemaTeatro LUX, Fabbrica Europa, Stagione di Caccia festival and Orchestra Stolpnik, Italy; CENPI and Centar Rex, SCG; Stadt Park Galerie, Graz, Austria; LFK&La FRICHE, France;

Leiden University Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; ) is a Public university, public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. Established in 1575 by William the Silent, William, Prince of Orange as a Protestantism, Protestant institution, it holds the d ...

, The Netherlands; Media Center The Kitchen, Dancing in The Streets,

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

, USA). Shadow Casters were supported by the Zagreb Office for Culture, Education and Sports of the City of Zagreb, the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia, the Ministry of Science, Education and Sports of the Republic of Croatia, sponsors (like

Zagrebačka banka Zagrebačka banka d.d. is the largest bank in Croatia, owned by Milan-based UniCredit. Overview Zagrebačka banka was formed in 1977, intended to provide loans for local companies, taking over some former assets and operations including from th ...

Erste Bank Erste Group Bank AG (shortened version Erste Group) is an Austrian financial service provider. It is one of the largest financial service providers in Central and Eastern Europe serving more than 16 million clients in over 2,000 branches in seven ...

, Ergonet, etc.) and foundations (Zaklada Kultura nova, National Foundation for the Development of Civil Society, Trust for Mutual Understanding, ArtsLink,

European Cultural Foundation The European Cultural Foundation (ECF) is a Netherlands-based independent cultural foundation. Its mission is to “make a tangible impact on civil society, citizen initiatives, public opinion and policy proposals to combat the fragmenting force ...

ECF) state agencies and offices (Office of the Government of the Republic of Croatia and Gender Equality, and Agency for Electronic Media) and many others.

References

{{reflist

External links

Homepage of Shadow Casters

Presentation of Shadow Casters at Columbia

Information on Shadow Casters on Clubture Network

Shadow Casters on Kulturpunkt
* Websites of projects
FrooomShadowcastersZidneNovineExpozicija
Croatian contemporary artists Organizations based in Zagreb Interdisciplinary artists Artist groups and collectives based in Zagreb Performing groups established in the 2000s Performing arts in Zagreb