3rdHand Association

Contact

Tretaroka, društvo za reciklažne in kreativne projekte

Celovška 127, SI-1000 Ljubljana

tretaroka@gmail.com

Established in 2005, the 3rdHand Association (Društvo Tretaroka) is an organisation of quite a diverse and elusive character. It runs a multi-disciplinary and socially engaged programme that reflects the collective's backgrounds in design, art, cultural politics and social sciences. Proactive in setting up collaborative, educational and experimental platforms, the association is responsible for the Independent Biennial and Design Biotop.

During one of the editions of Design Biotop the participants, coming from the public administrations, were joined for workshops by selected designers, artists, and entrepreneurs. Pictured here at Kino Šiška, 2015

Main projects

The Independent Biennial (also called the Biennial of Slovenian Independent Illustration) is a platform for the promotion and development of the illustration scene in Slovenia. That said, the biennial recognises this as a very wide phenomenon, featuring not only book illustration, caricature, comics, design illustration, commercial logotypes and graffiti, but also the more "dynamic" creations such as animation, multimedia interventions, and interactive websites, and many other formats.

Design Biotop shares the former's openness in that it strives to connect design methods and a creative mindset with systemic interventions for societal change. Facilitating open knowledge exchange, this "experiential conference" consists of lectures, workshops and discussions, addressing not only those involved in design itself but also various types of public policy makers, private enterprises and artists.

A detail of a design composition by Ana Baraga, presented at the Independent Biennial, 2015

Collaborations

The 3rdHand Association has worked with numerous NGOs and galleries, various private enterprises as well as several state bodies and public cultural institutes, among them, Kino Šiška Centre for Urban Culture, the Museum of Architecture and Design, the Biennial of Design (BIO), the Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Ljudmila Art and Science Laboratory, SPIRIT, the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Education, Science and Sport.

International projects

The association established an ongoing collaboration with Aalto University from Helsinki, with whom they realised a series of projects (Face2Face, Marmelada, Emotional Window, Design Biotop).

In 2015, the Independent Biennial travelled to Washington, D.C., as a part of the European Month of Culture programme. There were two exhibitions set up, one in the premises of the Embassy of the Republic of Slovenia Washington and the other in the gallery space of New York University (NYU). The exhibitions presented authors who participated in the biennial between 2007 and 2013, altogether more than 80 of them with about one hundred works. In 2017, they once again exhibited at the Clayton Center for the Arts, Maryville, and at the Arts & Culture Alliance, Knoxville.

This "travelling biennial overview" also stopped in the summer of 2015 in Finland, where around 50 visual works were featured in a screening exhibition at Merkillinen – visual poetry exhibition at Gallery Aila Seppälä Lahti, organised by Sanakuva Collective.

Awards

The 2014 Design Biotop was awarded as the best accompanying event of the BIO 50:NOW.

See also

• Independent Biennial
• Design Biotop
• Museum of Architecture and Design
• Kino Šiška Centre for Urban Culture
• Biennial of Design (BIO)
• DobraVaga

External links

• Independent Biennial website
• Design Biotop website
• Some of the Design Biotop lectures, recorded for the ArtistTalk platform
• A web page with short info about the 3rdHand Association

Gallery

Collaborative work at the self-styled "experiential conference" Design Biotop, 2014

Redesigning Our Future / Cities, government, innovation, an open lecture by Marc Steinberg at the Museum of Architecture and Design, 2015

A workshop taking place during Design Biotop, 2015

Kamera, the exhibition space of Kino Šiška Centre for Urban Culture, is regularly used to exhibit the works of the younger generation of Slovene illustrators, 2015

The Independent Biennial strives to establish a more integrated community of illustrators and also position itself as a platform for the promotion, collaboration and reflection of independent illustration, 2015

The Independent Biennial exhibition, held at Kino Šiška Centre for Urban Culture, dealt with a variety of formats, recognising illustration as a very wide and dynamic phenomenon, 2015

A detail of a design composition by Ana Baraga, presented at the Independent Biennial, 2015