European Centre for Art, Culture and Science

Thursday April 15 2010

Building the City: the First 365 Days of GRAD

We congratulate The City in Belgrade with its first anniversary! This European Centre for Citizenship, Culture & Debate was co-founded by, among others, Felix Meritis.

Since GRAD has opened its doors in the Belgrade community of Savski Venac on April 16, 2009 it has proven that there is a real need in the city for an open space for new ideas, artists, students and opinion makers. A meeting place where people can present their projects and establish new initiatives for the near and far future.

For the first time one of the industrial buildings in Belgrade has been transformed into a cultural place. In this re-designed multifunctional warehouse, built in 1884 on the bank of the river Sava, GRAD introduces a new way of running a cultural center in Belgrade- through co-operation, diversity of events and audiences and solid partnerships. GRAD reaches out to the younger generations in Belgrade but also to those who are open to an alternative European culture to bring Serbia closer to Europe and Europe closer to Serbia.

GRAD hosts and organizes various artistic and cultural projects from within the Balkan region and has become an important focal point on the cultural map of Serbia. Thanks to the Refract Festival (a festival on alternative European culture) and "The Others" (a European film festival for audiences in Kragujevac and Zrenjanin) as well as a new literary project "Gradska knjžinica" GRAD has developed a solid network for cultural cooperation among ex Yugoslavian countries such as Croatia, Bosnia, and Montenegro.

In its first year GRAD has presented 260 events for 47.000 visitors with debates, exhibitions, concerts, lectures, seminars, performances and filmscreenings, literary evenings, fashion shows, cocktail parties etc. GRAD sends weekly newsletters both in English and Serbian to 2720 contacts while on its Facebook page GRAD has 4999 fans and 3631 members. 320 articles have been published in the national and local media.

Now at the beginning of its second year GRAD will start its journey on the road to a long lasting sustainability. We will increase the venue's attraction and visibility by creating exciting contemporary events for a young audience in Serbia and beyond.

The City is an initiative of Felix Meritis (Amsterdam), Cultural Front (Belgrade), the MillenniuM (Kragujevac) and the Cultural Centre (Zrenjanin) and is financially supported by the MATRA programme  of the Ministry of Foreign Aff airs of The Netherlands.

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