From 13 to 24 June, 2017, the fourth PAIC workshop was held in Farouz, Osek in Slovenia

The resident artists were the Croatian intermedia artist and curator Darko Fritz and the emerging Hungarian/Slovenian contemporary dance artist and teacher Tamas Tuza, who were supported by the local culture education veteran Nevenka Bremec. The particular mix of performing arts and (inter)media creative practices is surely bound to positively permeate the rural social, natural and technical tissues!”

During the intensive weeks in Osek, being inspired and mentored by Darko Fritz and Tamas Tuza, and having worked creatively on developing toolbox of artistic mediation through the frottage and stopmotion including choreographies and singing, we wanted to explore and further illustrate how sociocultural animation overlaps with artistic and cultural mediation and how artists can mediate between artistic and social and cultural contexts.

Remarkable part of these intensive weeks were discussions about separation of participatory practice from one’s own artistic practice / producing work in social contexts or, in another word, of art created from an individual act in opposition to the collective creation based on interactive and participative approach. This approach lies in the foundation of the project and is desirable in the sense of PAIC as a way to democratization of culture through forming relationships of mutual exchange among participants, works, knowledge, artists and institutions involved, and through proactive approach where local people construct the contents and interact with artists as both artistic and cultural mediators committed to developing their practice in participatory setting.