SKVER news
a good spirit of zaječar
TIMOK DIGITAL 2024 is a four-day workshop (August 27-30, 2024) in Zaječar, Serbia, designed to bring together archivists, cultural workers, and community members to strengthen community preservation networks, share regional history, and provide training in media collection preservation. This workshop builds on the basic skills taught in Timok Digital 2023, though attendance in the previous workshop is not required to benefit. The workshop will offer time and equipment for attendees to gain hands-on experience in digitization and collection care, while engaging in peer-to-peer learning guided by professional archivists.
On the last day of workshop, August 30th, 5-7 pm, all visitors will be able to digitize their own film and photo material while enjoying the movies from the SKVER Memory Lab collection.
Trainers + Coordinators: Siobhan Hagan, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC ● Marie Lascu, Community Archiving Workshop, New York, New York ● Kelli Hix, Community Archiving Workshop, Nashville, Tennessee ● B Milenković, Library of Congress, Washington, DC ● Vesna Madžoski and Mikica Andrejić, SKVER, Zaječar, Serbia ● Ivica Ivanović Photography, Zaječar, Srbija
Guest Speakers: Aleksandra Sekulić, Program Director, Center for Cultural Decontamination, Belgrade ● Dragan Stojmenović, Ethnologist and Anthropologist, Librarian, Local History Department, Public Library, Bor ● Ivan Jović, Amateur Filmmaker, Zaječar ● Madelyn Mahon, Cultural Attaché, U.S. Embassy Belgrade ● Vukica Stanković, Public Engagement Specialist, U.S. Embassy Belgrade ● Radiša Cvetković, Assistant Director for Screening and Publishing Activities, Head of the Library, Yugoslav Film Archive, Belgrade ● Films by Ivan Jović, Zaječar; Filip Markovinović (Mafin, Novi Sad) ● Video by Asianometry and Stevan Golubović
This project is realized thanks to the volunteer work of many, private donations and the following support:
MEMORY LAB OPENING IN ZAJEČAR
SKVER, Zaječar
Karadžićeva 2
June 21, 2024, 7 PM
Inspired by the idea of Memory Lab, which has flourished in libraries across the USA, SKVER will become a place this summer where our fellow citizens can preserve their memories on analog media for free. Photos, photo negatives, slides, 8mm and Super8 films, VHS, and audio tapes… these all carry memories that over time transcend private recollections and become valuable testimonies of the past.
We invite you to the opening where we will present the project “Memories on Tape” led by Filmkultura, featuring Nadja Šićarov (Slovenian Cinematheque, Ljubljana), screenwriter and poet Maša Seničić, and Radiša Cvetković (Yugoslav Cinematheque, Belgrade), who will introduce us to the secrets of old projectors and film images on celluloid strips, along with a surprise guest.
The “Memories on Tape” project emphasizes the value of amateur films and the practice of amateur filmmaking in the former Yugoslav countries by collecting, documenting, and digitizing amateur or family films. It focuses on films from the territory of the former Yugoslavia that have potential historical and social significance – recordings that capture moments of life in Yugoslavia, places where Yugoslavs lived and travelled, and events they celebrated. The 8mm and Super 8mm film found its place in many Yugoslav homes due to the ease of handling narrow film strips and the availability of recording and projecting technology. Their popularity was further boosted by the emergence of amateur cinema clubs across the country, providing technical assistance and access to equipment. Zaječar once had a large and active scene of amateur filmmakers, and the first frames of Zaječar residents digitized at SKVER reveal a visual richness and creativity that we are only beginning to appreciate today. Join us in this adventure of discovering a forgotten history, bring your film reels and tapes, and we will gladly digitize them for you.
SKVER was founded in 2018 as an initiative by theorist Vesna Madžoski and photographer Mikica Andrejić to preserve the rich cultural and industrial heritage of Zaječar and the Timok region. So far, several digitization projects have been realized, such as twelve years of the “Timok” newspaper and over 10,000 photographs from the former factories – Crystal-Zaječar and KTK – Leather and Textile Combine. The digitized material is publicly available on the website www.skvermagazin.com.
To visit the Memory Lab and digitize old formats, contact us via social media or at the email cujeslibuku@yahoo.com.
The Memory Lab project in Zaječar is realized with the support of Trag Foundation.
THE ARCHIVE OF THE ARCHITECT MIHAJLO MITROVIĆ
The Timok Digital Media Digitization Workshop was a four day workshop (August 22-25, 2023) in Zaječar, Serbia designed to bring archivists, cultural workers, and community members together to strengthen media preservation efforts in the region. Three archivists led the training for seven to ten participants. Hands-on training in identifying, assessing, and digitizing media collections were interspersed with presentations from regional cultural workers who discussed topics in preservation and funding opportunities. The goals of the project were to strengthen education and training in preservation, establish a foundation for a community digitization lab, strengthen community networks and collaboration in preservation, and build sustainability for preservation efforts.
Trainers + Coordinators: Siobhan Hagan, Smithsonian Institution, MARMIA Mid-Atlantic Regional Moving Image Archive, Baltimore, Maryland ● Marie Lascu, Community Archiving Workshop, XFR Collective, New York, New York ● Kelli Hix, Community Archiving Workshop, Nashville, Tennessee ● Vesna Madžoski and Mikica Andrejić, SKVER, Zaječar, Serbia ● B Milenković, Library of Congress, Washington, DC
Guest Speakers: Sarah Ziebell, Regional Public Engagement Specialist for the Western Balkans, U.S. Embassy Belgrade ● Holly Zardus, Cultural Attache, U.S. Embassy Belgrade ● Smiljana Antonijević, Kosančićev venac Library ● Maša Seničić, a scriptwriter, an essayist and a poet ● Radiša Cvetković, Head of the Library at the Yugoslav Film Archive, board member, Kinoteka Magazine
This project is realized thanks to the volunteer work of many and the support of the Ministry of culture, Republic of Serbia.
EXHIBITION "FRAGILE: GLASS NARRATIVES, BROKEN HISTORIES"
05.04–05.05.2023
CK13, Novi Sad
28.03.2023 Lecture “Being (A) Negative: The Spectre of Photography”
Museum of Applied Art, Beograd
29.12.2022–15.01.2023
FRAGILE: GLASS NARRATIVES, BROKEN HISTORIES is a research project initiated by Public Space With A Roof, Amsterdam (Adi Hollander, Tamuna Chabashvili, Vesna Madžoski) in collaboration with SKVER Magazin, Zaječar, Serbia and photographer Mikica Andrejić. The project focuses on creating an archive and a collection of one of the former Yugoslav factory giants, Crystal-Zaječar, whose main goal was to turn previously luxurious objects of the rich into everyday objects available to everyone. After the 1990s and the fall of socialism, this factory which used to employ more than 4500 workers, was privatized and closed down. Nevertheless, the gigantic buildings it once occupied remained and still exist as strange creations seemingly belonging to an unknown civilization.
The ‘archaeological’ research done by Public Space With A Roof brings the encounter with the world of broken objects, traces of broken lives, and evidence of a broken history. The exhibition in the museum juxtaposes the images from the past to the present ones, revealing the fragile nature of the archive and the collection assembled and studied. It shares the objects and information gathered during the research, creating a space where the visitors are able to explore this history on their own.
VIRTUAL EXHIBITION: CRYSTAL CLEAR - PART ONE OF DIGITIZED CULTURAL AND INDUSTRIAL HISTORY OF ZAJEČAR
KTK Zaječar
ABOUT THE PROJECT
CRYSTAL Zaječar
SKVER magazin devoted the first pandemic year, the year 2020, to an ambitious task of digitizing 8000 images created in two factory giants: Crystal Factory, and Leather and Textile Industrial Complex “Zaječar”. Until the late 1990s and the beginning of the so-called privatization process, Zaječar had more than 15 factories from which today we only have individual memory, itself prone to erasure. The found photo negatives revealed an entirely new world to us: a testimony of not only the working environment of our fellow citizens, but moments and activities in their “free” time – sport, competitions, educational trips, visits to colleagues in Yugoslavia and Europe, etc.
As a consequence of the current economic situation in Zaječar, the estimate is the reduction of the population for almost 60%. The loss is not only material, as with every person that has left, temporarily or permanently, the memory on the community that once existed here is being lost too. On the other hand, the history of photography and photographers in Zaječar is still mostly unknown, hence one of our intentions is to initiate first steps in this research as well.
In late 2020, we posted daily 10 selected photos on our Facebook and Instagram page, still available to be seen, and on our website pages you will find the complete digitized material. Also, Serbian Ministry of Culture and Information’s portal www.kultura.rs devoted to digitization of cultural heritage is hosting the selection of most interesting photos.
CLICK HERE TO SEE THE IMAGES:
Thanks: Historical Archives “Timok Region“ Zaječar, Branch Library “Svetozar Marković“ Zaječar, Dragana Živković, Belakva Šu, Andrej Dolinka.
Project supported by:
✭SKVER Magazin is a voice of SKVER – A Nonprofit Organization founded with the aim of digitizing and preserving cultural heritage of Timok Valley region. Unfortunately, most of our material is in Serbian, nevertheless, the pictures “are worth a thousand words.”✭
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