Press Kit

Zvjezdane Staze is an independent artist residency in the village of Mijakovići, central Bosnia and Herzegovina. The residency is open to composers, sound artists, writers, visual artists, and researchers working across disciplines. It accommodates up to five artists at a time, or up to eight for collectives, with stays ranging from one week to one month (longer by arrangement). Participation operates on a sliding scale, and all finances are published annually.

Zvjezdane Staze is an independent artist residency in the village of Mijakovići, central Bosnia and Herzegovina. The curatorial focus lies in sound, experimental music, and media art. The residency operates independently, sustained through participation fees, programme contributions, and direct support. Participation is based on a sliding scale. Part of all income returns to the village as samodoprinos, a practice of collective contribution. All finances are published annually. The house accommodates up to five artists at a time, or up to eight for collectives. Stays range from one week to one month (longer by arrangement). Programmes include open residencies, a sound art fellowship, literary weekends, masterclasses, and a permanent audio installation along the path to the medieval fortress of Bobovac. The residency is operated by Fondacija Prostor. Artistic direction: Belma Bešlić-Gál.

Zvjezdane Staze proceeds from a conviction that artistic practice requires conditions of shelter and autonomy, and from an equally strong conviction that the organisational structures providing such conditions are themselves sites of experimentation. The residency functions as a laboratory for post-institutional forms: transparent finances, sliding-scale participation, micro-fundraising, governance structures that move between analogue and digital. The question driving this work is what becomes possible when infrastructure embodies the principles it supports: self-organisation, mutual aid, distributed stewardship. Collaborations materialise years later, or remain latent. Those who come may seek community or solitude, embed themselves in village life or remain in the studio. The conditions allow for both. A house in a mountain village. Forest paths. The medieval ruins of Bobovac fifteen minutes on foot. Time structured loosely, or left entirely open. The possibility of encounter sustained, offered, unhurried. Zvjezdane Staze: star paths. Trajectories that cross, occasionally bind, then continue.

Mijakovići bb, 71330 Vareš, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Belma Bešlić-Gál (1978, Tuzla, SFR Yugoslavia/Bosnia and Herzegovina) is a composer, pianist, curator, and intermedia artist based in Vienna. Her work spans composition, installation, and media art, with a focus on sound, language, and spatial perception. Her compositions have been performed by leading contemporary music ensembles and premiered at festivals worldwide. Awards include the I z S Art & Culture Prize, the Austrian State Scholarship for Composition, and the SKE Publicity Award. She is Artistic Director of shut up and listen! festival (Vienna), Zvjezdane Staze artist residency (Mijakovići, Bosnia and Herzegovina), and Kultur1 cultural platform (Vienna).