Raw Materials for Critical Futures is a regional cultural project developed across Skopje, Novi Sad, and Tirana, bringing together artists, theorists, cultural workers, and young creatives to explore urgent social, political, and environmental questions through critical cultural practice.
At the centre of the project were Critical Laboratories and residencies, designed as open spaces for learning, experimentation, and dialogue. In Skopje, the programme explored theory, subculture, corporeality, and artistic responses to uncertainty through workshops, public talks, and exhibition-based formats. In Novi Sad, laboratories focused on contemporary fascism, public space, social choreography, and political memory. In Tirana, the programme addressed eco-social innovation through art, with participants working around the Lana River as a site for observation, reflection, and creative response.
The project engaged over 100 direct participants through laboratories, residencies, workshops, symposia, and public discussions, while exhibitions and public events reached more than 1,400 in-person visitors. It also created space for regional exchange between North Macedonia, Serbia, Albania, and Kosovo, connecting local cultural scenes with wider regional conversations.
One of the project’s key outputs is the publication of Critical Cultural Futures, which gathers reflections and writings developed through the laboratories and residencies. The publication preserves the ideas, methods, and questions generated through the project and makes them available as a resource for future cultural and critical practice.
Through its process-based and collaborative approach, Raw Materials for Critical Futures showed how art, theory, and civic engagement can work together to imagine more open, critical, and socially responsible cultural futures.
Implementing partners: Kontrapunkt (North Macedonia), Kuda.org (Serbia), EcoKult Foundation (Albania).
Raw materials for critical futures project was supported by the British Council through the “Culture and Creativity for the Western Balkans” project, funded by the European Union. CC4WBs aims to foster dialogue in the Western Balkans by enhancing the cultural and creative sectors for increased socio-economic impact.