What is of urgency today? What is the knowledge we are personally pursuing and how it can be shared? Is the time of urgency more important and productive than a time of leisure/pleasure? Can we still find, in the rush of capitalistic production, the space/time to think freely, to make complex work of art, to engage in human relationships and to deeply commit to a personal or common project?

This meeting will happen in the ancient capital of Yugoslavia, not far from the leisurely Adriatic sea, but also in a region which has been torn by war and conflict more than anywhere else in Europe.

The workshop in Belgrade focuses on Urgency and Leisure to underline the emerging crises in democracy in the Western Balkans that has further been deepened by the current recession. But also to look at how another form of crisis in democratic values is developing in Northern Europe.

This is been highlighted by the dialogues with the Belgrade based independent platform for performing arts theory and practice, TkH (Walking theory) who will present their theoretical magazine on performing arts and their project ”Deschooling classroom” inspired by the critical ideas on education of Ivan Illich and Jacques Ranciere, and during meetings with various Belgrade-based curators and artists, as Maja Ciric, Marko Stamenkovic, Isidora Ficovic, Ivan Grubanov, Ana Nikitovic and Nebojsha Milikic (Cultural center Rex). We will work and think about the upcoming Ouunpo Report under the direction of Samon Takahashi and we will enjoy performances and happenings by Per Huttner, Fatos Ustek, Jacopo Miliani and Elena Nemkova taking place in museums and other public and private spaces in town.

The activities of "Ouunpo (A Workshop of Potential Universe)" has always focused on performance. In the projects realised in Amsterdam, Nijmegen, Skopje and Belgrade in 2011 this has come to the forefront. With work carried out at Max Planck Institute in Nijmegen, Rongwrong Gallery in Amsterdam, The Museum of Revolution and the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade and many more private and public spaces this has been further underlined and developed.