Association for Research, Support and Protection of Karst Landscapes
Festival Krasopis: 24.-26. October 2025
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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.
On this site and live at the festival we will present up-to-date scientific Karst perspectives (dolines, caves...). A small group of activists will show us how environmental activism can artistically or politically or work on the protection of rivers.
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.
Participants 2025
Ivo Lučić
Ivo Lučić is a karstologist whose field of interest is wide as the Dinaric Karst, but not as deep as the Dinaric Karst. He brings things together. In books, research reports and his journalistic work he investigates how nature science and traditional and practical ideas show a contemporary image of the Karst. He describes his perspective as karstological holistics or environmental humansitics. His expertise and his critical view of human intervention in the Karst will enrich artistic impulses and give us the necessary grounding for the subject.
Ana Hušman
Ana Hušman is a Croatian artist and an associate professor for animated film and new media at the Academy of Arts in Zagreb. In her projects she focusses on individual and collective narratives, such as narratives of landscapes, especially the landscape of Lika where she spent a lot of time with her grandmother during her childhood. Her shortfilm "Radije bih bila kamen" (I'd Rather Be a Stone) is a tribute to the strong women of the Lika who live and work, often alone and under hard conditions, but rarely have a voice in media. We are so happy to present the fil at the Krasopis-Festival!
Foto: Maja Bosnić
Foto: Iva Perković
Kristian Novak
Kristian Novak is one of the most popular writers in Croatia (and neighbor countries). Besides that, he is a linguist and professor for German Literature at the University of Zagreb. He received many awards for his litarary work.
In his book "Črna mati zemlje" (Black Mother Earth) a jung writer explores his writer's block by diving into his traumatic childhood in Međimurje. It's a book with thriller-elements a a lot of build ups of tension while researching the relational dynamics of land and people. By using dialect forms and other language attributes, he sets new literary standards. This book, like other texts written by Kristian Novak, have been turned into theatre plays and are still frequently performed.
Nives Sertić
Nives Sertić is a multimedia artist. She was born in Dubrovnik and studied at the Art Academy in Zagreb. She taught at the Design studio of the University in Zagreb and the community college in Zagreb. Her work on landscapes (inner and outer landscapes) present the visual frame of the this year's Krasopis Festival. Her series "A Gaze on Landscapes" walks us through the obviously perceptive as well as the metaphoric, the under-lying and the implicite. She reveals the motives of movement and momentary stillstand in nature in her interplay of various media and that's why she will gift us at the festival with a lot of new perspectives.
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Aida & Teo Barišić
This couple has been descending into the Underworld for more than 30 years. And how many long hours did they spend there! As speleologists they explored the most important and deepest cave-system in the Dinaric Karst. They discovered and investigated the largest jama-system of the Dinaric Karst in the Southern Velebit, the jamas of the Crnopac (CJS), a system of 62 kilometers. First it was just one Jama to which they gave the name Kita Gaćešina, but after twenty years they found the connection to other systems. Half of their family took part in it.
Aida and Teo Barišić are a phenomenon themselves. And rarely can people talk about speleology in such an exciting and competent way. We are so happy to welcome them on this year's Krasopis!
Foto: Šibenski
Damir Ovčina
Damir was born in Sarajevo. He is a writer and engaged in many projects. His book "Kad sam bio hodža" (When I was a Hoxha) talks about a young man who was trapped in the Nineties in Sarajevo in the district of Grbavica during the Serbian siege and who involuntarily witnessed extreme violence and the sad fate of the town in its darkest places. There is hardly another writer who was able to note the trauma of the people and the place in such a panorama of observation-crystals, bringing them into a dark mosaic, like Damir Ovčina could. Whoever focusses on the subject of trauma (even geotrauma) should read this precise, even clinically accurate investigation of physical and emotional happenings in the life of an eighteen-year-old. It is literature, just as any great literature, which leaves the reader completely changed.
In 2025 Ovčina published his latest novel, a book with the title "CVII".
Foto: klix.ba
Dane Franolić
Dane Franolić is is an exceptional musician. As a student of classical music he plays the marimba i classic concerts. Only in the last year he received six memorable awards on international stages, and he holds the reputable Yamaha-Fellowship in Zagreb. Since this year he started touring through Croatia as a solo-artist, but took also part at the IPEW Festival, the musical biennale in Zagreb, the SHIP Festival, he performed in the great concert hall Vatroslav Lisinski and at the UniArt Festival - and this year at Krasopis-Festival!
With the unusual, intense sound of his wonderful instrument, he will take us into new dimensions. We are so happy to welcome him this year!
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 read Jan Röhnert's "Earthtimeday" and will present it together with us!
Hrvoje Jurić (Philosopher)
Hrvoje Jurić is a professor for philosophy in Zagreb. He has a special interest in bio-ethics. He is one of the editors of the magazines "Philosophical Research" and "Synthesis philosophica". Besides that he writes poems. His book "On the Less and even Lesser" is a collection of poetical (!) essays on minorities and beings which we as humans tend to see as less worthy, refugees, for instance, or animals, or things and phenomenon we love to look down on.
This year he will present his bio-ethical ideas on phytophilosophy, the philosophy of plants. In a world of anthropocentric thinking this is a long-ignored subject. We are so thankful that he will give us a short introduction into what phytophilosophy means.
Ivan Judaš
Ivan Judaš plays the handpan, this awesome instrument whose sound blends into any environment, bringing us automatically into peace, or evoking a kind of unexplainable joy. Ivan Judaš plays it often in nature. Then, a dialogue starts to happen and we can listen to it. A sort of conversation with the acoustic dimensions of the forest, the sea or the meadows. Besides his concerts, he offers workshops where he teaches others in the art of this music. At the Krasopis-Festival he will join us on the excursion into the Karst - and eventually communicate with the rocks?
We can't wait for it!
Teo Delić
Teo Delić teaches at the Biotechnical Institute of the University in Ljubljana. As a biologist with focus on zoology he investigates among other things the endogenous and caverniclous Coleoptera in the Dinaric Karst. Ther diversity of the fauna is close to his heart. In the last years he he focussed on the morphological shifts of amphipodes (scuds and sand hoppers in salt water and rivers). So small animals and so much to be read out of their adaptations!
We are happy that Teo Delić joins us on this year's Krasopis!
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 17 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 to it and found a new world.
Jasminko Mulaomerović
Jasminko Mulaomerović is a speleologist, an interdisciplanary scientist and a researcher with all his heart. He is the founder of the "Center for Karst" in Sarajevo, and organizes many conferences for the research and protection of Karst landscapes. Physically and interlectually he dives deep into the underground of the Karst, but he is a specialist for bats and other - often forgotten - plants and animals in the Dinaric Karst. Any nature form should have such a competent, curious, and committed protector like him. Mulaomerović is everything Krasopis stands for - in one person!
Tijana Trako Poljak
Tijana Trako Poljak is a sociologist at the Philosophical Faculty of the University in Zagreb and for many years editor of the scientific magazine "Social Ecology". She teaches at the Department for Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology.
Her main interest lies in the relationship of man and environment (Social Ecology) with an emphasize on micro-sociological perspectives and visual sociology. Furthermore, she works on social symbolism and constructs of meaning in identity with focus on the Croatian society and societies in Middle and Southeast Europe. At the Krasopis Festival she'll present contemporary frameworks of life in rural regions based on her extended field studies. And she might give us an answer to the question why young people (don't) stay in their rural home countries.
Iva Korbar
During the last years Iva Korbar turned out to be the performance-artist of the festival. She is an artist, a dancer and very familiar with the first human form of expression: language. She is able to perfectly translate the subjects around nature and inner human conflicts into a body narration which is sometimes more precise and more poignant than words could be.
This year she will present her "plant writing" (poems) and plants will speak through her words directly to us!
Dagmar Schreiber
Karst exists on many places around the world. In Germany, there is a Karst region the Sothern Harz Mountains. For many years its balance is threatened through massive gypsum exploitation. Even in places that should be protected through there status of "Biosphere reservation", new threats appear somehow through backdoor. And nobody seems to notice it. Dagmar Schreiber is one of the activists who is tirelessly engaged to prevent the worst. With the citizen's movement "Pro Südharz - gegen Gipsabbau" she works on generating consciousness within the citizens, for fair politics, and for a recollection of the landscape that's our foundation. We have the same problems in the Dinaric Karst. And that's why we are excited that she will share her experiences at the Krasopis-Festival.
Les Ortegas
Les Ortegas, that's Denis Protega, Kristian Kirinčić and Ivan Korlević. This young and dynamic formation based in Rijeka will us musically bring in tune through its colorful original songs of Blues, Rock, Flamenco and ethnosound and open the this year's Krasopis Festival. We'll hear all the elements of the Dinarac Karst translated into music and attuned to be a rhythmical heartbeat for a journey to the Mediterranean!
Program 2025:
Friday, 24.10.25
Plants in the Karst
Place: Seminar House, Hotel Village Balatura
17:00
Nives Sertić
Vernissage of the exhibition "Landscapes"
With: Nives Sertić, Anne-Kathrin Godec, Ivo Lučić
17:30
Perceptions of the Plant World in Art
Es nehmen teil: Nives Sertić, Ana Hušman, Iva Korbar, Hrvoje Jurić (Philosoph), Anne-Kathrin Godec und Ivo Lučić
19:00 Dinner (for the participants of the festival)
20:00
Kristian Novak
Black Mother Earth
With: Kristian Novak
Moderation: Anne-Kathrin Godec
Concert: Les Ortegas
(in the wine cellar of the hotel)
Saturday, 25.10.2025
Seminar House, Hotel Village Balatura
09:00
Jasenka Topić, lecture
Ecology of Plants and biodiversity in the Dinaric Karst
9:30
Excursion into the Karst
Jasenka Topić,
guided walk
During the excursion:
Concert in Nature: Ivan Judaš (Handpan)
Picknick
Back at the hotel ca. 13:00
14:00 Hrvoje Jurić
Plant -Philosophy
15:00
Iva Korbar
Writing Plants (Poems)
16:00
Dagmar Schreiber
Gypsum-Karst in the Southern Harz in Germany - The Survival of a Biosphere Reservation
17:00
Round-Table-Talk: Perceptions of the Plant World in Society
With: Hrvoje Jurić, Iva Korbar, Nives Sertić, Dagmar Schreiber, Ivo Lučić, Anne-Kathrin Godec
19:00 Dinner (for the participants of the festival)
20:30
Damir Ovčina
Literary Event
With: Damir Ovčina, Anne-Kathrin Godec
(in the wine cellar of the hotel)
22:00
Concert
Dane Franolić
Marimba/ udaraljka
(Seminar House)
Sunday, 26.10.2025
Jama
09:00
Aida i Teo Barišić
The Investigation of the Crnopac-Jama-System - the largestof its kind in the Dinaric Karst
10:00
Teo Delić
Underground biodiversity in the Dinaric Karst
11:00
Jasminko Mulaomerović
The Holy Bosnian Underworld and other Usage of Caves
12:00
Anne-Kathrin Godec and Ivo Lučić
Geotrauma in the Dinaric Karst
13:00
The Transformational Power of the Cave- A Shamanic View on Nature
With: Jasminko Mulaomerović, Anne-Kathrin Godec
14:00 Lunch (for the participants of the festival)
The Social Fate of Karst
16:00
Tijana Trako Poljak
Life Quality of the People in Rural Regions
17:00
Ana Hušman
Radije bih bila kamen (I'd Rather Be a Stone)
Short Film
Afterwards: Conversation with the author)
19:00 Dinner (for the participants of the festival)
Krasopis 2024 - Impressions
Krasopis 2022 - Impressions
