In September 2018, the Future Epics project was launched with the aim of linking various historical narratives and contemporary art through an online platform, with the active involvement of the target audience by gathering stories from different historical periods coming from partner countries and all across Europe, focusing on those which are ignored and less popular for various reasons – from politics to discrimination. This project is supported by Creative Europe, and implemented by Heartefact Fund (Serbia), together with its partners: Vitlycke Center for Performing Arts (Sweden), TASCA (Spain) and Dubrovnik Summer Festival (Croatia).
The first event of the project was the Symposium, held in Sweden from 17th to 20th October. It was dedicated to the implementation of various historical narratives in works of contemporary art.
On Saturday, October 20, 2018, at the Center for Performing Arts Vitlycke, within the framework of the Symposium on the Culture of Heritage, a public event was also organized, which was also live-streamed on the Future Epics Facebook profile.
A new reading of cultural heritage through arts, through numerous media – theater, dance, visual and even non-narrative arts – provides the space for national history, in societies contaminated by chauvinism, to shift from a nationalist narrative and provide an opportunity to review the key problems of these societies.
Within this event, Biljana Srbljanović, award-winning dramatist and professor at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade, and Eleonora Narvselius, a professor at the University of Lund, the department of Central and Western European studies, presented their experiences with the use of various topics of cultural heritage in contemporary art.
Biljana Srbljanović shared her rich knowledge and experience about the implementation of socially-politically engaged narratives in the works of contemporary art. In her lecture, she focused on her works – the play “This Grave Is too Small for Me” about Gavrilo Princip and the beginning of the First World War, and her work on an audio sculpture as part of the monument devoted to Zoran Djindjic, the first democratically elected prime minister in modern Serbia who was assassinated fifteen years ago, which still divides Serbian society.
Eleonora Nervselius, a professor at the University of Lund, at the Department of Central and West European studies, gave a lecture about the academic reconstruction of historical heritage. She talked about the Europeanization and reconstruction of the heritage in Scandinavia and the rest of Europe, with a special focus on the study of the Foteviken Viking Museum in the south of Sweden, which is the only reconstructed location and display of a small village from the time of the Vikings. Her study highlights narratives that put emphasis on the international connection on the basis of historical heritage.
After the lecture, an open discussion on cultural heritage and ways of its implementation in contemporary art was organized. The discussion was attended by representatives of the partner organizations, along with the audience.