A Neighborhood’s Cultural Revolution

Siniša Tucić, a renowned writer and artist from Novi Sad, was a part of the Magic Carpets project in 2022. Siniša has published numerous poetry collections, including “Concrete Coma” and “Mechanical Monsters,” and the novel “The Priest’s Piglet.” His work extends to editing notable collections and creating the award-winning experimental film “Discarded Passwords.”

In 2022, during his residency with the Magic Carpets project, Siniša worked with children in Novo Naselje, Novi Sad, to explore potential locations for a dispersed cultural center. This collaborative effort led to the creation of the “Rhinotown” Manifesto, a visionary poem that imagines Novo Naselje as a vibrant cultural hub with imaginative and unconventional spaces for artistic expression and community gatherings.

Can you tell us more about your artistic journey and how it led you to the Magic Carpets residency program and the current Superorganism exhibition?

While my primary focus is as a writer, my artistic approach has always been multidisciplinary. In addition to publishing five poetry collections and one novel, I’ve explored other mediums like theater, music, and performance. For years, I’ve been involved with the Novo Kulturno Naselje organization, where I met artists participating in the Magic Carpets project in Novo Naselje, my neighborhood. Invited by friends and collaborators, I joined the project in the summer of 2022, the first summer life began to normalize after the COVID-19 pandemic. I formed a wonderful friendship with Portuguese artist Rossana Ribeiro, and later Milica Surutka from Novi Sad joined us. We quickly started working together, and my own artistic work developed alongside theirs.

What was your experience with the Magic Carpets residency program? What inspired the themes and concepts behind your work?

The theme was challenging. I spent hours with my friend Marko Jozić (the driving force behind Novo Kulturno Naselje) discussing the creation of cultural content in our neighborhood. I was inspired to creatively engage the local community in imagining a future dispersed cultural center in Novo Naselje. Through workshops with preschool and school-aged children, we developed the Rhinotown Manifesto, which became my contribution to the exhibition. I managed to adapt a complex topic, touching on cultural policy, to a level suitable for children. Through associative games, the girls learned concepts like cinema and theater halls, dance studios, foyers, costumes, props, performance, and exhibition… and realized that a cultural center could be a lawn, garden, passage through a residential building, sidewalk,shop, or even a bomb shelter. Activists from Novo Kulturno Naselje—Sara Agić, Sara Dedić, and Marina Todić—documented everything, and I compiled the workshop material into the Rhinotown poem-manifesto. Lucija, a girl from the neighborhood, read the manifesto, creating an audio recording, and then, in conversation with Marko, we came up with the idea to place small speakers around the neighborhood as an installation. We owe a lot to Vesna Marković, a local schoolteacher who, after retiring, opened a reading room in her garage where children love to come and read books.

Your work involved collaboration with local communities. How did these creative collaborations influence your approach to the residency program?

Siniša: All activities of Novo Kulturno Naselje, from planning and organizing to executing programs, are conducted in collaboration with local communities. Our programs involve preschool and primary school children, teenagers, middle-aged and older generations, and pensioners… Following the theatrical practices of the renowned director Peter Brook, we have completely removed the barrier between the audience and performers. In times not particularly favorable to art,Novo Kulturno Naselje has shown that an artistic-creative experiment is possible in a residential district on the outskirts of a city.

Do you believe that Magic Carpets contributes to a broader understanding and presentation of contemporary art? How does it support artists in engaging with new audiences?

Through Novo Kulturno Naselje, I have developed friendships with artists from various European countries.Thanks to their extended stays in the residency program, we had the opportunity to get to know each other better,exchange knowledge and experiences in artistic practice. This was particularly valuable to me as I learned the methodology from the initial idea, gathering collaborators, necessary research, to workshop work and the creative finalization of the project.

What do you hope the audience will take away from the Superorganism exhibition?

I hope the audience takes away the energy of creation. In these turbulent times, with several wars shaking the world, the youth from the capital of culture should carry the possibility of creating a new language of universal communication that will lead to peace and understanding. The entire world of contemporary culture and modern art provides the opportunity to come together again and try to reimagine existence in today’s world. This is why we still don’t need Chat GPT and artificial intelligence.

What awaits you after the Superorganism exhibition? Are there any upcoming projects or themes you wish to explore?

One of my identities and experiences since birth is my disability (cerebral palsy). In recent years, I have been intensely engaged with Disability Studies, and I have prepared a thematic collection of translated texts on this topic in Serbian: Disability Studies by Siniša Tucić. In the future, I would like to explore the impact of art and disability on everyday life in the 20th century. My father was an avant-garde poet, and my life has been marked by the avant-garde.Just as the avant-garde breaks down constructs about classical art, modern theories of disability break stereotypes about “normal” bodies, subjects, and the laws we all must follow. Disability is a social construct, not an unchangeable biological fact. In the intersection of art and diversity in a neighborhood on the outskirts of a city, I see the possibility for initiating new and exciting creative processes.