Karst mountains inspire artists, scientists and anyone who loves to dive into landscape. We are very happy to introduce people to the Croatian festival scene who found a way to get into dialogue with nature through their creation, their work or just their curiosity. During the festival we will speak with musicians, visual artists, poets, karstologists, speleologists and people who research the mythology of karst regions.

We'll present many perspectives on the mountains. How does Karst sound? What is it telling? How does it look like? What can we know about it? Join us on this research journey, we would appreciate it!

It's important to notice that the Karst is one of the most complex and diverse landscapes and ecological structures, and that it is, because of the leading - and mostly stereotypical - narratives not that visible.

This year at Krasopis there will be writers and visual artists from Germany, Croatia, America and Bosnia-Hercegovina. On an excursion the participants will try to come to a communication with the non.human nature: plants and wild horses. In the expert program part our scientists will analyze the traditional forming of the landscape and discuss a historical, archeological perspective.

We will present a scientific up-to-date picture of the Karst (caves, karst fields) and discuss environmental protections of the karst values. And we will even attempt to find an answer to the search for identity through the karst landscape.

The idea of the gathering is to bring our participants together in conversations and exchange of experiences to give space to complement each other for a new image of a world that could be less reductionist than the existing one.

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Programm

Musik Highlights 2023

Participants

Ivo Lučić

Ivo Lučić is karstologist with body and soul. The field of his research is wide as the Dinaric Karst and there are obviously no borders to his interests. He shed light on nearly every aspect of Karst landscape (in his books, research reports, journalistic works: geological aspects, speleoplogical, biological, cultura--historical, meteorological and many more. With his knowledge as well as his critical perspective on human interventions in nature and the obvious love for karst mountains, he'll add on the festival to the artistic impulses and in the same time guarantee the necessary grounding.

Judith Stromeyer

Judith Stromeyer is a writer, illustrator, owner of a horse ranch and therapist (with and for horses). The special abilities she'll borrow us for our festival is her talent vor animal communication. Judith has special experiences with wild horses. We'll join her on her way to the wild horses on the mountain Tić (right behind our hotel) and let her teach us how to communicate with wild horses. Is it actually possible - even in a very subtle way - to contact them? Is it right to do so? Is there a wild place within us, a place we use to avoid just like the wilderness in our outside world? With Judith's competent support we'll circle around these subjects... what an opportunity!

Ivan Lovrenović

Ivan Lovrenović was born in Zagreb, but grew mainly up in Mrkonjić-Grad in the middle of the Karst, next to incredible karst fields and mountains inviting him to recent excursions. Lovrenović is one of the most important literary voices of Bosnia and Hercegovina. He wrote more than thirty books, novels, essays, rhythmic prose, medial texts, cultural and historical studies and a lot more. It's difficult to find a writer who is dealing with societal questions of Bosnia and Hercegovina in a more profound and wide-ranging way than him. For Krasopis he will present his book "Ikavic Geography", a travelogue which led him deep into cultural, societal and literary dimensions of the Karst landscape in Middle-Bosnia.

Zdenko Bašić

Zdenko Bašić is a visual artist, an illustrator, scenographer and author. He lives somewhere in the forests near the capital Zagreb and listens to their stories. These stories are at times quite old and listeners like Zdenko are needed to transmit them and save them for the future. In his work he translates them into pictures and collages, books and films. By doing so he is reaching a great international audience, who listen attentively and feel some kind of remembrance...

His famous book "The Shadow of the Moon" is finally published again and comes out with a new issue, and a new book on the mythologiy of the Istrian Karst landscape is about to be born.

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Jessica Julian

Jessica Julian is a writer and illustrator (and was an attorney before!). The Vinodol valley is her adopted home where she lives toegether with her husband one half of the year. The exploration of the local landscape inspired her to write an all-age-book: Ebby, the Magnificent. It's a book on animals and children, on kindness, openness and curiosity.

And in the same time the book speaks about the local natural environment of the Dinaric Karst and invites its readers to see the extraordinary beauty and the wonder. Sometimes we need the playful perspective of a child, or maybe a rabbit, to remember that!

Jasminko Mulaomerović

Jasminko Mulaomerović is a speleologist and a karstologist. He is the director of the Center for Karst and speleology in Sarajevo and he is dedicated to the subterranean life and to caves in general. His knowledge on the Karst phenomenon is so wide-ranged that we can't count all the studies and publications he did throughout his work-life. He even studied the question if visitors in caves should be allowed without creating harm for the nature - the subject of speleo-tourism. Bats, these beautiful wonder-beings of the underworld, are part of his main research.

Can we think of a better companion to the nether regions of the Karst mountains? We can't!

Milan Soklić

Milan Soklić is one of the most well-known translators from German to Croatian language. He translated Thomas Mann, Joseph Roth, Peter Sloterdijk and a lot other writers. But he is a writer and a mountaineer, too. This cobination turns him automatically into a Nature writer. His book"Excursion into the Karst" speaks of the life episode of the vitalist Hans Driesch on his journey to a research station in Sicily. He makes a pause inTrieste, gets to know a lot of new people and takes this legendary excursion into the Karst, a trip that will change Driesch's inner life.

For this year's festival Milan wrote a story, bringing Slavic mythology and literature together. We are delighted to present it on Sunday!

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Iva Korbar

Iva Korbar has studied Croatian literature and language. Besides that she speaks a lot of languages, but besides Swedish, English and Turkish she is interested in other kinds of language expression: body language, language of movement, sound language and the language of plants. She speaks and reads these languages most likely where they occur - in the middle of nature. That's where she creates experiences which one could call "performances". These are momental snap-shots of a world in movement, exchanges of bodies with each other and dialogues with all othe senses we have: tasting, touching, sensing, hearing and seeing. For the festival she will invite us to dive into one of her performances within the Karst. Well, what a great opportunity!

Jan Volker Roehnert

Jan Volker Röhnert has studied German literature, he is professor at the TU Braunschweig, and he is a writer. His latest book put a big focus on the Karst. "Walking the Karst" is a literary exploration of nature and in the same time the description of experienced mountain walks. It's a dialogue between the mountain phenomenon of Karst and authors of different literary eras who wandered the Karst just like Jan does. It's a walk between small, individual observances and the big context of the Karst. And while he travels to our Vinodol karst, his latest book "Karstwards" is on its way, too., and will soon see the light of day! We are happy to explore the Dinaric Karst together with him!

Nadja Zupan Hajna

Nadja Zupan Hajna is a geologist, a geomorphologist and a karstologist (to just name some of her fields of activities). Her interest extends on a range between the deepest karst caves and outer weather conditions. She studied autochtonous, chemical processes in the Karst and is familiar with natural and artificial environmental conditions. Practically and theoretically she travels the Karst all the time and she'll be of great support to all of us during the festival. And besides all of that she is the current president of the World Speleologist Association.

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Enes Škrgo

Enes Škrgo is a wanderer, especially in the Karst region around Travnik, where he was born. But he is a wanderer between worlds, too. He moves through literary worlds when writing, and while reading. A big part of his work is dedicated to the preservation of the work of Travnik's most famous son, the writer and Nobel Prize winner Ivo Andrić. Enes Škrgo is the curator of Andrić's birth house and included museum. Besides that he is the editor of the young, bosnian publishing house "dram radosti". where he explores through the publications all the layers of Bosnia nad Hercegovina: politically, historically, and scientifically. That's a wide field of research, but, don't worry, Enes has got great tools and good mountain boots!

Josip Lovrenović

Josip Lovrenović is an artist, specifically in the field of photography and graphic design. His collection of photographies will visually accompany the festival. It's the exhibition of photos he made for the book "Icavic Geography", written by Ivan Lovrenović who travelled with him. Josip's view is occupied by the Karst, by stone in general and by stećak stones specifically which mark the landscape of Bosnia and Hercegovina and therefore tell their own story. The special thing with Josip's perspective is that he unites (in his artwork) the physically explicit with a metaphysical vastness.

Helena Knifić Schaps

Helena Knifić Schaps is an architect. For decades she is not only engaged in her own projects, but also in Unions of Architects on a local, regional and federal level. She is a very special guest for our festival because of her specific interest in the traditional architecture of the Northern and Middle Velebit Mountains. She did intense research and wrote about the typology, the historical and geographical context of the cultural heritage and developed pathbreaking approaches to save it. What can be a dwelling place for the human being, which traditions and innovations should be applied, that's what she will tell us...

Anne-Kathrin Godec

Anne-Kathrin Godec is a writer, poet and translator. Together with her husband she owns the literary hotel Balatura where she organized during the last 15 years reading events, conversations and festivals . But the whole time she is magically drawn to the nature in the environment surrounding her. As she grew up in the forests and walked on paths covered by fir needles in the Black Forest in Germany, the Dinaric Karst seemed a little alien to her at first. During her wanderings through nature she started to read the landscape with its own alphabet, slowly drew nearer and found a new world.

Nataša Crnković

Nataša Crnković studied ecology and environment protection. Since 2002 she works for the "Center of Vital Interest" in banja Luka and has the position of the program coordinator for biodiversity. Together with her collegues she deals with the protection of water resources in the Karst landscape, fights against the building of hydroelectric power stations, especially in the Karst field Livanjsko Polje. The combination of scientific work and activistic readiness to engage in the bettering of the life in the Karst for all involved beings makes her a very valuable enrichment for the festival Krasopis.

Igor Kalaba

Igor Kalaba comes as a representative of the "Center of Vital Interest", too, right from Banja Luka. His subjects circle around questions of energy and climate. In this context he worked as a coordinator for questions of climate change for the Climate Action Network Europe in Brussels.

His holistic approach to activistic work includes automatically other societal discussions, such as corruption, minority politics, women's right.

Well, yes, let's open the horizon!

Sandra Josović

Sandra Josović studied political sciences, worked as a journalist and editor, and at the the "Center of Vital Interest" she deals with communication. She does the public relation work and organizes events. And yes, that's one of the most critical elements of environmental protection: holding contact with the public, the eraliyation of events and the engagement in public discussions that have to be held. Not always an easy job to do, but definitely inevitable.

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Jelena Ćalić

Jelena is a geomorphologist and works at the Institute Jovan Cvijić in Belgrade. She was born in a big town, the Karst of the Lika, however, is her place to be. This place, the climbing on the rocks of her childhood and the fragrance of the flowers , turned out to determine her life path. A very special role played a little Karst field, the Krbavica field. Within this field there is a a little village with the same name. That's where Jelena found her connectedness with nature as if it were her very personal karst field. Is there a better person to introduce the richness and the problems of Karst fields to us. We don't think so!

Igor Kulenović

Igor Kulenović is an archeologist, one could even say, a geo-archeologist. He is professor for Archeology at the University of Zadar. Lately, he finished a project researching the landscape of the Dinaric Karst in the Velebit mountains and in Bukovica. H gained a lot of insights. Together with his colleagues he was able to define character types of these Karst regions, determine elements of the cultural landscape and identify the archeology of the Karst as well as war damages in the Karst. He will present some of these results at the Krasopis festival.

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OKC Abrašević

For our next participants, there is an explanation needed. They are representants of the OKC.

OKC Abrašević is the short form of "Omladinski Kulturni Centar" (Cultural centre for Young People)) in Mostar. It's a network of non-governmental organizations and independent individuals with a long tradition.

One project of OKC Abrašević in cooperation with the media department of AbrašRadio is the development of the "Bridges of the Hercegovina". This media research project became a conglomerate of stories, narrations and characteristic phenomena that are typical for the region in which people, unfortunate, communicate quite badly. After a serial of artistic actions and sound work (sound postcards), they focused on the archetypal motive of the stone, and its contemporary, urban and aesthetic interpretation led to a new understanding of the geomorphological overall structure to which the Hercegovina belongs. By doing so they opened a new karstological, ecological and (post)humanistic perspective, and the OKC is convinced that education will have a positive effect on the eco-region of the Dinaric Karst. Participants on the Krasopis-Festival are:

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Monika Bazina

Monika's department within the Cultural Centre Abrašević is the development of the initiative. She studied speech therapy and education of sign language for deaf people.

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Boris Filipić

Boris is the program director at the Cultural Centre Abrašević and editor at AbrašRadio.

He studied political sciences.

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Dalila Spahić

Dalila is the communication department of the Cultural Center Abrašević.

Besides that she is a student of professional informatics and very experienced with the organization and conducting of events.

Programm

Friday, 27.10.23

18:00

Josip Lovrenović - Ikavic Geography

Place: Seminarhaus im Hotel Village Balatura

Opening of the festival with the vernissage of the exhibition "Icavic Geography" by Josip Lovrenović

20:00

Ivan Lovrenović - Icavic Geography

Place: Seminar house at Hotel Village Balatura

Ivan Lovrenović presents his book "Icavic Geography" (published by Dram radosti, Travnik 2022)

Participants: Ivan Lovrenović, Ivo Lučić, Enes Škrgo

Presentation & translation: Anne-Kathrin Godec

21:30

Bruno Mičetić, guitar

Saturday 28.10.23.