Independent Art Republic

Independent Art Republic begins with a simple idea: art can create a territory of its own.

For one week in the Serbian countryside, fourteen artists selected through an open call came together from around the world to work alongside three mentors. The exhibition presents work that emerged from this shared time and space.

For a brief period, the artists inhabited a common ground – not as representatives of different nations, disciplines, or generations, but as bodies, voices, and imaginations in relation. IAR is less a place than a condition: a temporary republic founded on encounter, trust, experimentation, and the freedom not to know in advance what might emerge.

Here, mentorship means proximity, attention, and making space for the unforeseen. The artistic process is allowed to remain open, unstable, and unfinished. Error, imperfection, and failure are not interruptions, but possible openings through which another language can begin.

What remains is not only the work produced, but also the experience of being together: conversations, gestures, silences, and shared time. Independent Art Republic imagines art as common ground – fragile and temporary, yet capable of creating new forms of belonging.

Mentors: Serbian artist Vladimir Miladinović and artists and RUFA professors Marta Jovanović and Davide Dormino.

Participating artists: Jelena Milatović , Kaja Đoković, Tatjana Ružić, Rishi Khurana, A. Elif Aydoğmuş, Julia Vasconcelos, Zorana Stevanović, Aleksandra Milutinović, Aleksandra Aranitović, Nikola Lajić, Heather Sussanah Roach, Angelina Krunić, Sonja Lundin, Anđela Kopanja