Week 1: Newcastle to Belgrade

I’m Alanna and I’m originally from Newcastle.

I am currently pursuing an artsy nomadic academic lifestyle; two weeks ago I was living in Dublin and now I live in Belgrade, Serbia.

 

I’m a part of the last cohort of the International Performance Research Masters run by the University of Warwick, Trinity College Dublin and the University of the Arts Belgrade. In short, I study performing arts – academically, artistically, practically, and also from a curatorial perspective. Over the past 8 months, I’ve been inspired by so many wonderful artists, academics and amusing encounters along the way. I decided to start this blog to share experiences of my last semester here in Belgrade, which will be my home for the next three months before embarking upon my dissertation project.

I don’t intend this blog to just document my travels, it’s also meant to share the artistic anecdotes I stumble upon along the way, as well as my journey as an artist. In turn, perhaps this blog can also serve as inspiration to other artists.

I’ve only been here four days, but already I’ve had the warmest of welcomes, from my local market seller to the department at the university. I’ve already had the opportunity to attend the Belgrade Dance Festival, several galleries and stumbled across several Serbian artists on the way.

I’ll end my post today with a spur of the moment meeting. Whilst spontaneously en route to a gallery with our lecturer after class, we ran into a couple of artist friends of his. The older man continues to talk to me rambling about typical things artists face, lack of funding, ideas and publicity. Regardless he continues to speak of the art industry with as much passion as a teenager despite revealing he is nearly 70. This  man may seem to any of you like a random struggling artist, however, he was in fact part of the circle of artists in Belgrade known for provocative artwork, including Marina Abramovich, the ‘Godmother’ of performance art.”

It is this man’s final parting advice which I’m adopting as my motto for this blog.