KUD Anarhiv

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KUD Anarhiv

Metelkova 6, SI-1000 Ljubljana

http://kudanarhiv.org/

skratovacital@gmail.com

Phone386 (0) 1 434 0345

KUD Anarhiv is a non-governmental organisation established in 1999 and based at the Metelkova mesto Autonomous Cultural Zone. It runs a number of mainly educational and art-related programmes, predominantly aimed at youth and occasionally at children, and encourages critical thought, self-initiative and self-education outside formal contexts. As a rule, its programmes are always available for free, as is the use of its library.

Anarhiv often collaborates with other institutions such as Šiška Library, MSUM, Klub Gromka, KUD Mreža, ŠKUC Association, Radio Študent (RŠ), YHD - Association for Theory and Culture of Handicap and the Slovenian Theatre Institute.

The library and the information office

The central project of Anarhiv, started even before the organisation was formally established, is the so-called Elf's Reading Room (Škratova čitalnica). This is a library of varied, often hard to find books, magazines and other reading (and video) materials that deal with radical social theory, with counter-cultural and subcultural topics, and with liberatory movements relating to class, sex, race, or nature. Most of them are in English language and are easily searchable through the search engine on the Anarhiv website.

While the reading room has been traditionally situated in a defunct library in one of the inner courtyards of Metelkova mesto, it is now housed in the city centre, at Kersnikova ulica. Additionally, some of the material for children can be reached through the so-called Elf's Bibliobus (Škratov Bibliobus) at Metelkova.

An information office, featured in the Ljubljana Network of Info Points (L'MIT), is also located at the library premises. It is a part of Škratova Info-point, a programme which supports youth in setting up their own projects by offering useful information (about funding, on exchange programmes, etc.) and necessary skills and know-how.

Programme activities

Besides running an alternative library for more than 16 years, KUD Anarhiv is or has been involved in dozens of projects, with only some of the more recent ones mentioned here.

Among them: a French language class; an African literature class (which focuses on reading selected literary works and then discussing their specific cultural, social and political implications); a seminar on film and TV studies (in cooperation with the Šiška Library); a seminar on theatre theory and practice (though mostly taking place at the Slovenian Theatre Institute; it also involves radio shows, public events, discussion with artists, etc.); a series of lectures, discussions and workshops on film and contemporary society, mostly held at the Trubar Literature House; a small youth gallery, and so on.

The former Anarhiv's premises at Metelkova are still the site of regular workshops on sound (covering everything from production and sound recording to music publishing).

Past projects

An important part of the KUD Anarhiv activities has been a focus on film, with the Elf's Film School (Škratova filmska šola) taking place between 2009 and 2012 and offering an innovative combination of film theory and practice. The lectures and workshops were held throughout the year and conducted by young film theorists and film-makers. The featured lectures led to the publishing of three collections of texts featuring not only film theory but also literary works and more general social criticism.

Also carried out have been: a reading debate circle on seminal humanities and epistemology texts (in cooperation with MSUM); a project on permacultural and self-sufficient gardening (still running but on a smaller scale); workshops on edible food in urban areas; summer schools on feminism; lectures focused on analysing fantasy literature; and more. Also, the reading room used to collaborate with the Peace Institute Library, and acted as a representative of the now-defunct services of Artservis.org.

A very curious feature was the Elfmobile (Škratmobil) project in 2015. It was a mobile social-cultural platform for youth and children that drove around the Bela krajina region and organised various educational activities on site. Co-financed by the Norwegian Financial Mechanism, it also involved Vizo, the Črnomelj Library, and some other NGOs and cultural institutions.

See also

• Ljubljana Network of Info Points (L'MIT)
• Metelkova mesto Autonomous Cultural Zone

External links

• KUD Anarhiv website (in Slovenian)
• Some of the works published by KUD Anarhiv
• A website on projects created as a part of the high-school active citizenship workshop