On Saturday, June 29, we introduced the Slavic Soundwalking project to the local audience Belgrade, a project supported by Creative Europe and implemented by Hartefakt in collaboration with partners KIC, Yelo, and the Danilo Kiš Cultural Center from Croatia and Slovenia.
The mobile app is designed to preserve the heritage of South Slavic languages and was conceptualized by Jelena Remetin from Croatia. The app includes 75 audio stories, 25 from each country, available in five languages: Serbian, Croatian, Slovenian, English, and sign language. These stories can be listened to at 75 locations across Belgrade, Zagreb, and Ljubljana. Some of the audio recordings were narrated by actors such as Vanja Ejdus, Katarina Marković, Nina Perišić, and Amar Ćorović, while the English versions were read by Dunja Stojanović. The app is free and can be downloaded from Google Play and the Apple Store.
The event began at 6 PM in front of Hotel Moskva, where we listened to the first audio story before embarking on a guided walk through central city landmarks, including Atelje 212, Nušićeva Street, the Main Post Office, RTS, and St. Mark's Church.
As part of the program showcasing this new "tool" for enjoying literature, we organized a storytelling event called "Stories from the Salon", where some authors narrated their own stories. The event was moderated by theater director Tara Manić and held at the Salon of the Museum of the City of Belgrade. The first story, "Silvia von Harden in the Café", was read by Sofija Dimitrijević, a young Serbian playwright in her final year of dramaturgy at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts. Her works will soon be performed at Atelje 212 and the Belgrade Drama Theater. In the Slavic Soundwalking app, this story is available near Hotel Moskva and is narrated by actress Nina Perišić.
Vida Davidović, playwright and author of the novel "Nausea: On Not Growing Up", presented her love story "Exactly at XZ Hours", which can be heard near the Main Post Office in the app, narrated by Andrej Nosov.
Among the speakers was Suzana Tratnik, editor of the Slovenian stories for Slavic Soundwalking and a scholar with a master's degree in gender anthropology. Suzana assigned the Slovenian authors an urban theme related to Ljubljana, inspiring a variety of creative ideas. For example, Tanja Matijašević wrote a humorous love story titled "The Isolated Party". Tanja, a writer and performer, read her story in Serbian, while for the app, it was narrated by actor Pavle Pekić.
Selma Skenderović, a Slavic studies student in Ljubljana, shared her story "Sunday Shopping", which is set at the Ušće Shopping Center. In the app, it is narrated by actress Nina Perišić. Selma noted that the story is an excerpt from her forthcoming book.
Serbian author Katarina Mitrović transformed her short story "Condom Balloons" into a poetry novel titled "Not All Houses Have Yards", recently published.
Ksenija Kušec, an author and architect from Zagreb, presented her story "A Little More", which is narrated in the app by actress Katarina Marković.
Among the authors of the 25 Serbian stories are Radmila Petrović, Tijana Grumić, Staša Bajac, Milica Vučković, Svetozar Cvetković, Branko Rosić, Filip David, Filip Grujić, and many others.
The next day, at Tašmajdan Park, we organized a storytelling event for children. For our youngest audience, fairy tales were narrated by actors Mina Obradović, Anja Ćurčić, and Andrej Nježić.
The Slavic Soundwalking app was presented in Belgrade as part of the 32nd BELEF Festival
The project was also supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Serbia.
Fotografije: Dragana Udovičić, Đorđe Jovanović