Established in 2018, Kuma International Summer School is the first program solely dedicated to contemporary art practices produced in the context of conflict and trauma. The school focuses on Bosnia and Herzegovina and the work artists in the region and the diaspora have been making in response to the political turmoil of the 1990s which began with the fall of Yugoslavia and ended with war and genocide.

More than 70 students from 19 different countries have participated in the program over the past five years. Marking the 5th anniversary since the school’s first edition and thirty years since the beginning of the war, this year’s program will be dedicated to the revaluation, revalorization and envisioning future directions of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s contemporary art practices.

Who are the pioneers of contemporary art in the region and how have they been shaped by the recent, violent past? Who are the artists of the next generation and how are they influenced by the current global crisis? Where are these practices taking place? How do they all imagine the future in a post-conflict society pulled between the need to confront the legacy of the past in the form of cultural memorialization and the desire to move forward and move on?

We will examine these questions by considering the most influential practices, the narratives put forward, and the boundaries they have pushed. Through a series of lectures, presentation and conversations in the classroom, as well as workshops and guided tours of local cultural and public spaces, participants will not only have a chance to learn, but also anchor their own attitudes and critical thought regarding the discussed topics and their global and local socio-political contexts. Summer school students will further be encouraged to develop and plan their own projects in the fields of visual arts and curatorial practice. 

Find the school program here.