Programme links: https://linktr.ee/cooltzine 

Downloadable programme schedules per location: Sofia , Belgrade , London

Our fourth collaboratively created zine, Cooltzine, will be released on 15 May during the cooltXchange weekend (15-16 May) simultaneously in Sofia, Belgrade (co-curator Zeren Oruc, iksvyart) and London (co-curator Amy Jackson) The 2021 theme is “Future Now”.

Pages are created by 24 contributors – from Indonesia to Bulgaria – participants in the Open Call announced December last year, and selected by Cooltsalon and invited international committee – Vasil Vladimirov (Be Duende, Bulgaria), Francesca Ricci (multidisciplinary visual artist and writer, Italy/Spain) and Zeren Oruc (iksvy art, Serbia/Turkey). Every author participates with one page, interpreting „Future Now“. For the first time this year zine’s general front cover is complimented by local covers individually created for the three participating cities. Johana Trayanova is the author for Sofia and Alexandra Tosman – for Belgrade.

As before, the zine will be presented and distributed simultaneously in Sofia, Belgrade and London – print copies available from designated partner places in each city. Confirmed partner locations: KO-OP for Sofia – a co-working and arts and exhibition space, whose team took part in the last year’s fully digital edition; KC Grad for Belgrade – cultural centre and art space, a stalwart of the Savamala neighbourhood; Finch café for London – a project of Palestinian artist Munir Waked, in the heart of buzzing East London scene. Local ‘offline’ programme details will be announced individually. The zine will still be available as downloadable digital copy for one month after the print distribution.

cooltXchange is a continuation of our hybrid, glocal project initiated in 2018, that includes production of collectively created zine and an associated event (so far, both known as Cooltzine). As of 2021 the zine retains the name ‘Cooltzine’, while the event becomes known as cooltXchange and doesn’t have a fixed programme format, but always includes at least one internationally shared programme element – either via live video transmission or content on our website.

Confirmed shared international programme elements for 2021 are:

live video discussion with some of the zine’s co-creators: Georgia Korossi, London-based activist, independent writer, artist and curator of documentary, anthropological and experimental films, and currently Digital Content Producer at the BFI; Manchester-based figurative visual artist and illustrator, Tina Ramos Ekongo; conceptual artist and sustainable finance professional, Amy Jackson; Sofia-based photographer Yana Todorova; Melbourne-based fine art photographer Carmel Louise; and authors of two of the local front covers, Belgrade’s Aleksandra Tosman and Sofia’s Johana Trayanova.

and screenings of short films and artist videos, selected by Cooltsalon’s curatorial team and reflective of the “Future Now” theme.

Confirmed titles include:

Spike Island-produced, Hiam Abbass-starring (Succession, Blade Runner 2049, The Swallows of Kabul) Jarman Award 2020 winner, In Vitro (al Mukhtabar) (dir. Larissa Sansour, Soren Lind, Palestine/Denmark/UK, 2019, 28 min) set in the aftermath of an eco-disaster. An abandoned nuclear reactor under the biblical town of Bethlehem has been converted into an enormous orchard. Using heirloom seeds collected in the final days before the apocalypse, a group of scientists are preparing to replant the soil above. In the hospital wing of the underground compound, the orchard’s dying founder, 70-year-old Dunia (Abbass) is visited by 30-year-old Alia (Maisa Abd Elhadi) – a clone born underground, who has never seen the town she’s destined to rebuild. Different Kind of Heaven (2020, 24 min) by Serbian artist & researcher, Sanja Anđelković, a cross genre/theme CGI film that flourished from Sanja’s time with Kair artist residency in Košice (Slovakia) in March 2020, right when the pandemic started; the work is set in a post-pandemic future, touching on the topic of unresolved environmental issues and a period of technocracy set. EULOGY (2020, 5 min) by Brooklyn-based veteran visual artist & writer Susan Silas, a motion capture video featuring a 3D scan of artist’s bust, raising questions of humanity’s drive to achieve immortality in the face of the inevitable, mourning the world, embodiment and the idea of ditching our bodies altogether, while preserving a ‘self’. The Future (UK, 2 min, 2013) is a playful stripped-down animation by the award-winning Brighton-based filmmaker, Alex Goddard, telling you everything you need to know about the future in a couple of minutes.

All selected titles will be split in two screening programmes, one for Saturday and one for Sunday, available online at cooltsalon.com and, where possible, as looped screening in-venue, locally.