Belgrade Counterpoint
At the initiative of the Ministry of Culture and Information of the Republic of Serbia, in 2017 the international conference “Belgrade Counterpoint” was launched, organized by the Center for Study in Cultural Development. The conference aims to gather artists and thinkers from different parts of the world, whose work contributes to our understanding of the time we live in.
Participants: Zhang Kangkang (China), Gunnar Kvaran (Iceland, Norway), Vladimir Pištalo (Serbia), Yuri Polyakov (Russia), Francisco López Sacha (Cuba), and David Homel (Canada).
The theme of the international conference Belgrade Counterpoint 2020 was “Art and Myth Today” and, due to the pandemic, it was held online for the first time. This theme was discussed by writers Dmitri Danilov (Russia), Eduardo Moga (Spain), Tea Obreht (USA), Aleksandar Prokopiev (North Macedonia), Vern Thiessen (Canada), and Hannes Hofbauer (Austria).
Participants: Habib Ahmadzadeh (Iran), Muharem Bazdulj (Serbia), Slobodan Despot (Switzerland), Zhang Jiqiang (China), and German Sadulaev (Russia).
Every year, the introduction speaker and moderator at the conference were the then Minister of Culture and Information Vladan Vukosavljević and film director Emir Kusturica. After each conference, transcripts of entire speeches were featured in the newspaper Politika, in a multilingual publication, as well as a documentary movie produced by the Center for Study in Cultural Development and broadcast on the RTS. During the conference, the participants sign a “Belgrade Statement”, dedicated to the promotion of the role of culture in the world.
