Roundtable discussion: Breakpoints, Breakthroughs and the Future

Time goes by slowly if you are a child, but with growing up and getting old, time accelerates into an ever faster spiral. Perhaps it is the same with organizations? Or, with their people, at least? It certainly holds true for Bunker – having started with one festival and a single production yearly, when time only accelerated twice a year, Bunker now operates at a pace that never slows down. If there is no festival, it is either the beginning, the peak, or the end of the season, a premiere performance of our production, a conference, or a tour abroad. Maybe the only way to slow down time for a moment is to celebrate the anniversary, make a mini inventory, and draw up a wish list.

Bunker’s two decades represent a history of the team and cooperation, a history of aesthetic breakthroughs, and at the same time, two decades of the dynamics between cultural policies and the organization that has been trying to influence, transform, participate in these policies, while navigating through the landscape of eternal struggles, minor breakthroughs, and unreachable ultimate goals.

Permeating through the history of Bunker is a history of the scene, the history of the cultural policy, the impressions made by the creators in the history of contemporary theatre and dance, and above all, impressions of a struggle for space, for work, for audience, for changes, for recognition … For art!

We will use the occasion of the 20th anniversary to look back, not for long, only enough to identify the key breakpoints and breakthroughs, to remember where we started and where we are now. We will not only focus on the history of Bunker, we will rather look for traces of Bunker in the broader history. After a short look back, we will turn to our favorite direction – forward! We will identify the key challenges of the future and (Bunker’s role in) the solutions for them.

The round table will be designed in the form of four café tables. After a short review of the breakpoints and breakthroughs, each table will be given the task to identify possible future breakthroughs.

Topics of the tables:

1. Spaces of contemporary art
Speakers: Nevenka Koprivšek (Bunker, Ljubljana), Pia Brezavšček (Slovene Association for Contemporary Dance), Miha Horvat (Sonda 13)
Moderator: Blaž Peršin (Museum and Galleries of Ljubljana)

2. Aesthetic breakthroughs and festivals
Speakers: Mojca Jug (Bunker, Ljubljana), Irena Štaudohar (Delo), Rok Vevar (theoretician), Katarina Stegnar (actress)
Moderator: Alja Lobnik (theoretician, critic)

3. Audience and culture and arts education

Speakers: Tomaž Grom (musician, Sploh Institute), Katarina Slukan (Planina Institute), speakers tbc
Moderator: Alma R. Selimović (Bunker, Ljubljana)

4. The local, the national, the regional, the international
Govorci: Rarita Zbranca (AltArt, Cluj, Romania), Tjaša Pureber (Asociacija), Uroš Kaurin (Association Moment), Marko Peterlin (IPoP)
Moderatorka: Tamara Bračič Vidmar (Bunker, Ljubljana)

For a brief moment, we will stop time, and then continue forward – into Bunker’s New Year!

Admission free.