Heroes We Love | Final publication presentation

UGM | Maribor Art Gallery | Maribor, Slovenia | 30 March 2017
The final project publication will be presented during end of project exhibition at UGM | Maribor Art Gallery.

HEROES WE LOVE | END OF PROJECT EXHIBITION & PUBLICATION PRESENTATION

All partners | Feb-Mar 2017
Heroes We Love. Ideology, Identity and Socialist Art in New Europe end of project exhibition on 11 large posters offers an overview of the many activities by 8 project partners.

#HEROESWELOVE INTERNATIONAL INSTAGRAM CONTEST: THE WINNER AND RUNNERS-UP

All partners | Jan 2017
YOU have selected the winner and two runners-up of our #HeroesWeLove International Instagram Contest! We have asked the winner and runners-up about their images. Read what they have to say.

EXHIBITION + PUBLIC SPACE INTERVENTIONS: TRIPLE FEATURE #5 | ÇETA, GEORGIA KOTRETSOS, PLEURAD XHAFA

Tirana Art Lab | Tirana, Albania | Dec 2016–Jan 2017
Double Feature is an exhibition format introduced by Tirana Art Lab with the aim of systematically displaying in our premises, two artistic positions to the Albanian, the regional and international audience. Triple Feature # 5 is a special edition of this format, where we exhibit together the works of Albanian art collective Çeta, Greek artist and researcher Georgia Kotretsos and Albanian artist Pleurad Xhafa.

#HEROESWELOVE INTERNATIONAL INSTAGRAM CONTEST

All partners | Feb 2015–Nov 2016
Share your encounters with #HeroesWeLove and take part in our Instagram Contest! We kindly invite all Instagram users to upload images or videos depicting Yugoslav and other socialist heritage – from sculpture and painting to architecture and design – to Instagram with the hashtag #HeroesWeLove.

International conference V: Nostalgia on the Move

Museum of Yugoslav History | Belgrade, Serbia | 29-30 September 2016
Nostalgia is present in a variety of manifestations in different niches of contemporary culture. On the other hand, the spread of nostalgia throughout post-communist countries has often been looked upon as a kind of maladjustment to the present and its requirements. Nevertheless, more than a few researchers have proposed that we should listen more carefully to messages conveyed by nostalgic narratives and practices.

Public Space Interventions & Lectures: Postcards from a City

LAZNIA | Gdańsk, Poland | 18 June – 15 October 2016
This project will attempt to reconstruct the tale of the role of ideology in the city and create an alternative narrative. The tale will not be an analysis of a specific place, but an attempt to reconstruct and create alternative urban narratives.

Live installation “Machinerija”

Dance Company Maribor | Maribor, Slovenia | 28-29 May 2016
One-day intervention in the centre of Maribor town, composed of a live dance installation inspired by the system of Rube Goldberg machine. It will create an atmosphere of the socialism era, which is well remembered by the older generations, but is somehow hidden from youth because the political reluctance to openly talk about the era still persists. Machine will run just for a few phases. After that spectators will be invited to get involved in the system.

Public Space Interventions & Workshop: Double Feature # 4

TAL | Tirana, Albania | 7 May–4 June 2016
Double Feature is a new event format introduced by Tirana Art Lab with the aim of systematically displaying in our premises, two artistic positions to the Albanian, the regional and international audience. Tirana Art Lab wants to engage contemporary artists of younger generation into the project through the art intervention on the selected socialist era monuments. The interventions aim to stimulate public debate, initiate new interpretations and envisage the potentials of those art works of the past.

International conference IV: The Art of the Socialist Period between Contempt, Fetishism and Transition

Tirana Art Lab | Tirana, Albania | 29–30 April 2016
The two-days conference, focuses on the legacy and perception of the art of the socialist period of the former Eastern bloc in contemporary artist and societies of those countries. Various presentations and panel discussions will explore the contemporary narratives with its dilemmas, relations between local focus and international approach, issues and representations in relation of artistic-curatorial collaborations.

Call for Participation: Socialist Art between Disdain and Fetishism

Tirana Art Lab | Tirana, Albania | April 2016
Call for participation! Tirana Art Lab will host a two-day conference dedicated to the legacy and perception of the art of the socialist period in the contemporary artists and societies of the former Eastern bloc. They invite conference speakers that are able to illustrate the complexity of the “former bloc” contexts after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the perception that these contexts have regarding the art of the socialist past and its linguistic plurality.

International Conference III: Heroic Art and Socialist Realism: Memory and Presentation of Socialist Past in Bulgaria

IEFSEM – BAS| Sofia, Bulgaria | 11 March 2016
One of the main topics of the project is a shared history of socialist realist or heroic art. What is common to all the countries included in the project is their rejection of the socialist realism art works and heritage.

Witnesses of Stone: Monuments of the Socialist Past in Bulgaria

IEFSEM | Sofia, Bulgaria | 11-31 March 2016; Stara Zagora, Bulgaria | 13 October – 13 November 2016
The photographic exhibition of monumental art of the socialist period in Bulgaria will accompany the conference in Sofia and later travel to Stara Zagora.

Call for Papers: HEROIC ART AND SOCIALIST REALISM

IEFSEM – BAS | Sofia, Bulgaria | 11 March 2016
Call for papers! IEFSEM – BAS Bulgaria invites scholars to contribute to the international conference Heroic Art and Socialist Realism Memory and Representations of the Socialist Past in Bulgaria. Application deadline until 15 February 2016.

Open Call: Postcard from a City

LAZNIA | Gdańsk, Poland | Dec 2015–Jun 2016
Open call! CCA Laznia in Gdansk announces an open call for one artist to take part in the project “Postcard from a City”. Application deadline until 13 December 2015.

International Conference II: Socialist Monuments and Modernism

BLOK | Zagreb, Croatia | 6–7 November 2015
The international conference on Socialist Monuments and Modernism will be addressing the problems of historisation of socialist monuments in terms of art history and collective history of former socialist countries.

Workshops + Round Table: Memories of Monuments

Piran, Slovenia | Oct–Nov 2015
Project aims and ideas will be tested and confronted with a series of audience activities (workshops and round table) about perception of socialist era monuments in coastal part of Slovenia, multinational and bilingual (Slovene-Italian) region.

Public space intervention + workshop: Liberation of Zagreb, Notes For A Reconstruction

BLOK | Zagreb, Croatia | 5-15 May 2015
The public space intervention is centred on Zagreb liberation day, a historic event which took place on May 8, 1945. The resistance movement and anti-fascist combat in the context of the city was a dispersed one, as opposed to the guerrilla front lines, and therefore not suitable for commemoration with monumental sculpture.

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE I: ART THAT CHANGES THE WORLD: CULTURE, POLITICS, IDENTITY

UGM | Maribor, Slovenia | 21 March 2015
The conference Art That Changes the World is focused on the broad spectrum of art and politics. We will look into different manifestations of politics & culture, with an eye on “Former East”, present artistic and curatorial practices that deal with question of memory and its interpretations, ideology in political landscapes, philosophy of politics and political art provocations.

EXHIBITION: HEROES WE LOVE | SOCIALIST REALISM REVISED | CASE STUDY: EX-YUGOSLAVIA

UGM | Maribor, Slovenia | Mar–Avg 2015
Heroes We Love enter a controversial field of socialist heroic art in order to identify and acknowledge those protagonists who brought the monumental art of the preset political landscape to its peak. We are interested in the iconography of socialist realism in all its mighty, generous, heroic realizations; in its sentiments, repartee, and feeling of drama, its large-scale commissions and more.

Heroes We Love Media Coverage

Selected media reports on Heroes We Love project activities.

Co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union

Heroes We Love is a collaborative, multidisciplinary project on the (still controversial) topic of socialist heritage of the 20th century European art. It brings together partners from institutional and non-institutional sectors from Central and South-Eastern Europe.

Questions & Answers BOX

We warmly invite you to share your thoughts, reflections or encounters with your Heroes.