INTERNATIONAL SUMMER SCHOOL June 2018
June 25-30, 2018
With the patronage of the Italian Embassy in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in 2018 Kuma International presented a one-week intensive course focusing on post-war artistic production from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Twenty local and international students examined how artists from the region have been affected by the political turmoil of the 1990s and how they processed the fall of Yugoslavia, the 1992–1995 war and its consequences through their artistic practices. Students also had the unique chance to meet local artists, explore the city’s museums and art galleries and visit artists’ studios.
Addressing contemporary visual art produced in the context of conflict and trauma, Kuma’s first summer school and its local and international lectures provided a glimpse into the impact of war on local artists’ aesthetics and narrative. Furthermore, they looked at the phenomenon of a new generation of visual artists and cultural workers belonging to the Bosnian diaspora who have begun to return to their country of origin out of a need to reconnect with their homeland and elaborate upon their traumatic war experience through art.
Kuma International Summer School was the first international program entirely dedicated to the contemporary art scene from the Bosnian region. One of the main goals of the school was to address the deeply divided education system of the country and to offer a different and more inclusive narrative of the last conflict, inviting scholars from different parts of the region and diverse backgrounds.
The school was attended by twenty participants coming from thirteen different countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Italy, France, Slovenia, Germany, Poland, Greece, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, and the United States. Bosnian students came from the cities of Sarajevo, Banja Luka, Mostar, and Trebinje.
Scholars from Bihac University (BiH), International University of Sarajevo (IUS), the Courtauld Institute of Art (UK), UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies (UK), Salem State University Center of Holocaust and Genocide Studies (USA) and RMIT University (Australia) joined the summer school along with around fifteen visual artists, photographers and filmmakers from Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Bosnian diaspora (Austria, United States and Canada).
Download the Kuma International Summer School program
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