With the opening of the exhibition of children’s works created during the summer and autumn of 2022, with the awarding of prizes to the most successful ones, on October 15, 2022 in the Private Cultural Center “Aquarius” in Mitrovica, the final week of the IV Eco Art Fest began. The special guest was Dragana Katić, Hero of Serbian Waste. Sources: Radio Mitrovica Sever, Television Most.
Text: Radio Mitrovica Sever (Ivana Vanovac)
Video: Television Most
Photos: PKC “Akvarijus” (Milenija Mitković)
The final week of the 4th Eco Art Fest – a unique ecological – artistic manifestation, which organized by PKC “Akvarijus” from Kosovska Mitrovica.
The children were diligent and visibly inspired by the theme of love and care for nature. They have become real little eco-artists with the awareness that the seriousness of the problem is most easily and beautifully pointed out precisely through art.
On the occasion of the end of the festival held this Saturday in “Aquarius”, the best eco-artists received awards. This year they are Teodora Jelić and Lena Andrić. Together, they made a portrait of the big girl Ljiljana Dražević, who taught them how to weave rags from recyclable materials on a loom.
Teodora says that she is very happy about her diploma, and even more so about the voucher for participation in the environmental camp, which will be held next year in Sremski Karlovci.
“I can’t wait to go… Me and my friend Lena received an award for a drawing by Ljiljana Dražević.” She inspired us because she knows how to sew, we watched her fashion show, we watched her work beautifully and that inspired us. We have to preserve nature. This is done by the fact that if someone throws garbage next to the bin, we have to throw it in the bin, not in nature,” says Teodora.
Individuals and organizations that made their contribution during the festival and that showed a special ecological spirit, the children presented certificates of appreciation and badges, as a symbol of the simplest form of rebellion against immortal plastic.
Jasmina Cvetić, their great friend, a true environmental activist, who, together with the artist Miljana Dunđerin, created the Eco Art Fest a few years ago and during its duration provided moral as well as concrete help and support.
“When we started, it was very small. The first festival was even really good and turned out much better than I expected. This is already something very, very serious today and the number of children we have included is significantly higher and now we are also in Leposavic, plays will be shown in Zvečan and Zubin Potok, so everything has grown and I hope it will continue to grow. , says Jasmina.
The children and their mentors decided to declare for the first time the eco-hero of the north of Kosovo, and this year, that serious and responsible recognition went to Dejan Aksentijević from Zvečani, the constructor of an unusual water garden.
Dejan says that he is honored by the very participation in the festival, under whose auspices he hosted the children in this very specific private eco-system.
“I’ve been arranging that garden for a long time. I do it for myself, for my pleasure. People from the festival recognized that and I’m really honored. In the children who came, I saw both the will and the desire to have something like that in their environment,” says Dejan and notes that children today are unfortunately quite detached from nature and more oriented towards the digital world.
“I see it in my children, and that’s why I decided to show them what nature means and what it means to be in it.” It’s a pleasure and it’s just nice for me when I wake up in the morning and drink my first morning coffee with the babbling of a river that I made myself. It is no longer necessary to go somewhere far away in nature to hear the murmur of water, the rustling of leaves. Anyone who has even the smallest piece of land can be the creator of “his own nature” in his environment.
Aksentijević says that it doesn’t take much time or money. He works in his spare time, and he mainly collected the material for his water garden in nature.
“It’s relaxing and enjoyable when you know it’s your environment, your living space.” It doesn’t take much financially. The most important thing is a creative idea. I’ve been trying to create my own little eco system for a long time and it’s not very difficult, believe me. Go into any forest, next to a stream, next to a river and you can collect plants and materials that you just move to your yard. These are autochthonous varieties of plants. They don’t ask for too much attention. Simply transplant them and let nature do its thing,” explains our eco hero.
On that day, Dragana Katić, the Trash heroine of Serbia, was also hanging out with the children and the elderly, actually the coordinator of the Serbian section of the environmental organization Trash Hero and one of its founders. It is the most massive cleaning operation in Serbia, in which an incredible 30 tons of garbage were collected. In a conversation with journalists, Dragana emphasized the importance of such festivals because they appeal to the youngest those who can do a lot in terms of spreading ecological culture, both today when they are small, and tomorrow, when their role will be decisive.
“If our children are conscientious and responsible, they will make better decisions than we do now.” Treš Hirou has existed since 2018, in Belgrade next weekend we will have our 50th action, and in Serbia we organized around 300 actions, in which a total of almost 30 tons of waste was collected. However, cleaning actions were never offered as a complete solution. They are just a good motivation, a good inspiration, they draw our attention, so then we start thinking about how this waste is created. The step before someone unknowingly throws waste into nature is the unknowing purchase of a product, and the step before that is that someone unknowingly produced it and mass-produced it. Cleaning actions indicate that we don’t have good enough systemic solutions for waste treatment and that we don’t think enough about prevention,” says Dragana, noting that recycling and incineration are some of the solutions offered, but not the best, because an enormous amount is released during their implementation. poisons, which again pollute. The solution, he says, lies in reducing packaging production.
Hanging out with her, in the panel that followed, we learn what composting is, why the industry with those giant companies and brands, the soil in which the problem of pollution is rooted, points us to many logical moments, which for some reason we are not aware of. For example, many people have a problem getting dressed in second-hand shops, because they find it nasty, unhygienic and so on, but they have no problem lying down in a hotel bed, where there are also pillows and bed covers – not second, but a million – hand goods, considering that before us, who knows how many people slept there. We also learned that in the past 50 years, we have created more waste than our ancestors did in thousands and thousands of years.
It was the children who made the conversation so interesting with their clever and unusual questions addressed to Dragana.
“How did you not hate picking up all that trash?”
“Are you some sort of garbage cop?”
In the panel, which was moderated by eco-activist Jasmina Cvetić, Milan Dobrić, the initiator of the cleaning action #trashtag challenge, which was organized a few years ago in Mitrovica, took part.
In the continuation of the Saturday afternoon, the children, together with their parents and the organizers of the festival, started the most concrete environmental action. At the end of the day, they had three huge bags full of trash and a perfectly neat and clean park.
In the continuation of the final week of the Eco Art Fest, we are waiting for the premiere of the play “Planeta chista nek zablista” by the Small Theater based on the text by Slobodan Miljković and directed by Dunja Nikolić (in Zubin Potok on October 18, in Zvečan on October 19), then the screening of the films “Ice i nebo” and “Prava cena” (October 16 and 17), as well as a concert by the E Play group, DJ Batrić’s performance (October 20) and “Danilov’s Experience of Vienna” (October 21).
Admission to all programs is free, except for concerts, for which tickets for 400 dinars can only be purchased in advance at the Private Cultural Center “Akvarijus”. Also, for all programs, it is necessary to bring at least one cap, as a contribution to the “Cap for Handicap” action.
IV Eco Art Fest ends on October 21 in “Aquarius”, where an exhibition of eco-posters will be opened and the author of the best one will be awarded a prize in the amount of 1,000 euros.
The organizer of the festival is “Akvarijus” from Mitrovica, and this year the festival is supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation SDC.
Text source: Radio Mitrovica Sever >>