Dear ISWI Organisers,

I’m writing regarding the upcoming festival, as I’ve noticed that the preparations have taken a full
swing nowadays. Namely, I met several people this year at GrIStuF, and somewhat spammed about
the topic and the workshops and was definitely inspired by this year’s topic. My colleague, Ljubica
Samardzic and I have discussed this at length and arrived at the conclusion that we would like to
apply as workshop leaders this year. Both of us have volunteered at ISWiB 2016 and 2017 (as group
guides and therefore almost like full workshop participants), and attended GrIStuF 2018 as well as
ISFiT 2017, so we felt that we have got a good grasp of how everything should look. In addition to
these, we also experienced the spirit of other student organisations, such as ESN, AEGEE and AIESEC
and are great proponents of international communication and cooperation.

We have both graduated from the Faculty of Philology in Belgrade, and are currently enrolled as MA
students at the University of Augsburg, studying English and American Studies. The topic of our
workshop could roughly be named ARTivism, and you can find our expose below.

The term ‘ARTivism’ stands for social engagement, which employs social activism expressed through
various forms of art. As such, it has gained ground in the past several decades, stirring social change
through inspiring audiovisual displays and public performances, inviting people to critically appraise
society they live in and stand up to unjust and detrimental practices. The method of such social
activism has evolved so as to keep pace with the changes in lifestyle, mentality and value system. As
a relatively recent phenomenon, Artivism exemplifies the age-old need to face up to social
inequalities, governmental shortcomings and political machinations but it does so in an emboldened,
fresh manner by drawing on art as a vehicle for public dissent. Approaching social activism through
conscious creative efforts is an innovative concept, which seeks to bridge the gap between
traditional modes of combating difficulties and to meet the demands of the increasingly image-
oriented world.

In this workshop, we would like to take a closer look at different ways in which art could be used to
improve societal circumstances, as well as considering ways in which it could achieve its highest
potential. Since the examples of Artivism encompass a wide range of visual, auditory and
performative activities, the topic would probably be limited by studying and discussing mostly visual
representations of social issues such as murals, graffiti, paintings etc. The emphasis would be laid on
some of the most pressing issues including the ever-growing environmental threats, women’s rights
and political shortcomings, with a view to discerning as many aspects as possible in order to tackle
them effectively. That being said, we are looking at a final presentation, which would probably
encompass different audiovisual art forms, from posters to videos, music and dance to convey a
socially- and politically-relevant message. Moreover, we would try to encourage active social
engagement in our participants even after the festival has ended, as options for promoting global
well-being and justice are nearly endless.

As for the participants themselves, we hope we could attract people from various backgrounds who
could provide informative input and would be willing to discuss some of the aforementioned issues
at length. Ideal participants would also have at least some interest in art, and whichever talent they
bring to the workshop (because everyone has something of their own) would be more than gladly
included in the work towards the final goal. At this moment, it is impossible to tell what the exact
product might turn out to be, as it largely depends on the workshop participants as well as our ability
to draw the best out of them, but we are keen on creating a prolific ground for ideas and
development of the project.