Artists and creators from 5 continents celebrated the 20th anniversary of Shadow Casters.
Written by Boris on 2021-12-23
Throughout 2021, Shadow Casters marked their significant 20th anniversary with a series of exceptional programs involving professionals, artists, partners, and scientists from 5 continents, culminating in a grand finale in December.
Through the program “All-Equal 20,” the audience in 2021 watched 4 performances, co-created an exhibition, participated in numerous online and offline workshops, and followed a conference and symposium. Young artists were also invited to participate in the development program for performance projects “Earth Stations” with their project ideas.
In 2021, the Croatian-Italian play “$v€ j€ u novcu” was performed live at several locations in Croatia. A new play, “Kazachok,” premiered online, and for the grand jubilee, two legendary performances, “Ex-position” (from 2005) and “A Break from History” (from 2008), were re-staged in Zagreb in a fresh interpretation by a younger generation of Croatian actors and actresses.
The retrospective exhibition “All-Equal 20” at the Zagreb Cultural Information Center (KIC) presented the most important of Shadow Casters’ numerous projects in a playful, entertaining, and collaborative manner, providing insight into the key ideas and concepts behind their creation and public activities. Using special playing cards, the audience imagined the future of Shadow Casters and new projects, resulting in around thirty interesting and unusual ideas.
From Shadow Casters’ educational work and their concept of functional film literacy emerged a hybrid conference on multimedia in teaching, “From 8 Millimeters to 8 Gigabytes,” attended by forty participants and watched by over a hundred viewers. Through 3 round tables and one screening, the conference provided an overview of the use of multimedia in teaching throughout history, today, and in the future.
The international symposium “Earth Stations” gathered numerous experts from various disciplines and featured numerous inspirational lectures on architecture, film, theater, ecology, sound studies, visual and performing arts, education, and heritage preservation. Among others, participants included Srećko Horvat, Jorge Otero-Pailos, Maria Kyriakou, Maria Varnakkidou, Paolo Ottoboni, Hrvoje Hrabak, Tomislav Brajnović, Zlatko Paković, Jelena Miholjević, Petr Šourek, Adrienne Truscott, and many others. The symposium was followed live by over 650 viewers.
This jubilee year also saw the launch of the new protocol for the development of performance projects “Earth Stations,” in collaboration with the Domino association, Zagreb, and FRU, Skopje. Young performing artists have so far worked in two phases with a team of international theater professionals, producers, and educators, gathered to help them test their artistic, performative, and production visions from as many perspectives as possible. The final phase is scheduled for March 2022, when the projects will be presented to the public and numerous producers of performing arts from around the world.