The fourth Kaleidoscope of Culture will mark September and the end of summer this year as well. The four days of the opening ceremony in the Creative District, in the area of Great Liman, will be an overture to five weeks, during which, through five arts – architecture, literature, visual, applied and performing art, programmes will be presented throughout Novi Sad, giving visitors the opportunity to choose and create their own kaleidoscope of culture.
Kaleidoscope of Culture, which will last from 2 September until 8 October, is a yearlong project of culture of togetherness within which artists, cultural institutions, non-governmental organisations, citizens and visitors connect in order to create spaces and programmes that will be presented across Novi Sad, creating a unique picture of diversity.
The beginning of the Kaleidoscope of Culture will be marked by the opening ceremony on 2 September, which, as every year, will be accompanied by a multimedia art performance. During the four days of opening, the national pavilion of one of the most important European institutions for new media, Ars Electronica from Linz, will be presented to the Novi Sad audience, where representatives of the Novi Sad Academy of Arts will exhibit. Representatives of the gallery from St. Pölten will come from Austria, while the audience will have a chance to enjoy the exhibition on the legacy of the Great Liman, the ‘Obnova’ Film Festival, performances within ‘INFANT’ and numerous other events, which will be announced in the following weeks.
The gala opening will last until 5 September, after which, the Kaleidoscope of Culture will begin with the week of architecture, which will last from 6 to 10 September. In the spirit of setting new standards in the modern architecture of the capital of culture, and as part of the preparations for this year’s Kaleidoscope of Culture, a new urban-design call for conceptual solutions for arranging small public spaces called ‘New Places’, in cooperation with the Association of Architects of Novi Sad and the City Administration for Construction Land and Investments, was announced.
For four years now, the ‘Novi Sad – European Capital of Culture’ Foundation has been creating new spaces intended for fellow citizens, with the goal of further expanding cultural content to all parts of the city during the Kaleidoscope of Culture. Four new and previously arranged 36 neighbouring places will become new spaces for meetings of citizens and organisation of cultural content, both for the upcoming Kaleidoscope of Culture, and for many other events.
The week of performing arts will begin on Saturday, 11 September. It will present numerous events, among which Korzo, a unique concept that revives one of the iconic city streets, stands out. After that, a week of literature, which will be held from 18 to 23 September, with numerous young and established writers and representatives of the local, regional and world literary scene, will be held.
During the week of visual arts, held from 24 to 30 September, the audience will enjoy at the Gallery Square, while the last week, the week of applied art, will traditionally be dedicated to the Design Pavilion and will last until 8 October, when the Kaleidoscope of Culture closes.
The Kaleidoscope of Culture lasts 365 days a year and goes through four phases, in order to be presented to the public during one of them.
The first phase implies that citizens have a direct participation in creating the cultural scene. A real example of that is the ‘New Places’ project in which citizens, from idea to implementation, together with architects, arrange small urban units around the city, so that during the Kaleidoscope of Culture, those places become a kind of stage where programmes are held.
The next phase is the ‘Artist in Residence’ project, which involves the arrival of foreign artists and their cooperation with the local scene. In that manner, the Novi Sad cultural and artistic scene strengthens through internationalisation. Finally, there is the evaluation, which is a significant step in this year-round process because it listens to the audience and provides the basis for future programme creation.
As part of the strategy for the development of culture in Novi Sad until 2026, but also as part of the set goals for the preparation of the title year, the Kaleidoscope of Culture programme arch strengthens people and processes, which create spaces and programmes, i.e. permanent legacies of the ‘Novi Sad – European Capital of Culture’ project.
