Kino Šiška Centre for Urban Culture

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Kino Šiška is one of the main cultural centres in Ljubljana. Established in 2009, it is a highly industrious institution in terms of artistic scope, dealing with music, film, visual and new media art, theatre, and contemporary dance as well as with various other cultural endeavours. However, its main trade is that of music concerts, with the acts ranging from indie rock and alternative pop to experimental electronica and old school heavy metal.

Besides its 300 or so events per year, Kino Šiška also runs various programmes for finding and supporting upcoming artists, does international promotion for Slovene artists, runs a visual arts sales gallery DobraVaga, and collaborates with the local community.

Creed

Legally Kino Šiška is a public institution. It is an organiser, producer and co-producer of various events, but above all it functions as a programme manager and mediator between numerous concert organisers, booking agents, independent producers, artists – and also the demands and needs of the audiences.

The venue

Kino Šiška has two well equipped and adaptable multi-functional halls: the large Katedrala Hall, which can hold about 900 standing visitors standing for music concerts, and the small Komuna Hall, accommodating up to 200 souls. The lobby in front of the Katedrala Hall serves as a flexible exhibition space and is named Kamera. The café is a popular hangout for the Šiška Cultural Quarter, with the yard in front of it also occasionally serving as a venue.

One of two technically equipped and adaptable multi-functional halls: the large Katedrala Hall can hold from 800 to 1000 visitors standing for music concerts, Kino Šiška Centre for Urban Culture

Background

The name of the centre means Cinema Šiška, with Šiška being the name of its respective Ljubljana neighbourhood. It is inherited from the building in which it is stationed, a cinema built in 1961 as one of the first Ljubljana buildings characterised by modernist architecture (work of the Slovene architect Božidar Gvardjančič). In 2001 the cinema closed its doors for good and was afterwards but sporadically used for various art projects, dance and theatre performances, workshops, and so on.

However, after many years of public debates, civil initiatives and postponed public construction plans, the building was thoroughly renovated and the Kino Šiška Centre for Urban Culture was finally established by the Municipality of Ljubljana. It represents the biggest municipal financial investment into Ljubljana cultural infrastructure in decades.

Music programme coordinates

Music concerts are the main pursuit of Kino Šiška. The programme is very broad, though it does usually steer clear of the more mainstream productions. Indie, alternative, explorative, progressive and experimental expressions are its trade, even when talking about pop music.

It organises the highly renowned MENT Ljubljana international conference and showcase, sets up a cycle of primary and high school band concerts called Špil Liga, and partly co-produces a number of festivals, among them being the Druga Godba Festival and the Sonica International Festival of Transitory Art. It occasionally also sets up concerts outside its walls, as for example at the summer auditorium Križanke or at festivals across the country. A number of outside producers regularly use the premises of Kino Šiška, among them the national radio Val 202 and the rock promoter Kataman.

With a special policy concerning their guest list (even the accredited pay a symbolic fee nonetheless), KŠ annually finances a music project of its choice.

Hosted artists

Some of the musicians that have graced the stage of Kino Šiška (or been brought to Slovenia by it) are The Swans, Mulatu Astatke, Die Antwoord, Gramatik, The Pixies, Queens of the Stone Age, The Kooks, Editors, Ghostface Killah, Tindersticks, Haloween, Mike Stern, Future Islands, Asaf Avidan, Tricky, Nils Frahm, Alva Noto, Godspeed! You Black Emperor, Dirty Three, The Tiger Lillies, Jan Garbarek, John Spencer Blues Explosion, The Necks, GoGo Penguin, The Jesus and Mary Chain, John McLaughlin, Oren Ambarchi, Trentmoller, Anna Calvi, Satyricon, Lamb of God, Laibach, Random Logic, Noctiferia, and so on.

Blaž performing on the big stage of Kino Šiška Centre for Urban Culture at TRESK Festival, 2016

Art and design programme

Kino Šiška leads the visual arts sales gallery DobraVaga, set in the city centre and especially focused on young artists. It is in a way a continuation of the year long and rather packed Kino Šiška's art programme that forefronts young new media artists, illustrators, designers, comic authors, and others. Comics are in fact wuite a thing here, and for many years the place aserved as a comic book shop. Now it hosts the comics focused Stripolis festival as well as a regular 'comics bazaar'.

Some of the events hosted or co-produced by Šiška (as sometimes called by the locals) are the Independent Biennial, the Blind Date Convention, Festival of the Artist’s Book, and the Design Biotop. Other similar festivals very often also at least partly use the venue's infrastructure.

It should be mentioned that as Šiška for a time co-produced the Slovenia Coworking programme, it is also the predecessor and godfather to the Poligon Creative Centre co-working space.

Theatre, dance, and film programme

Many a new documentary or feature film by Slovene authors gets to have its premiere at this former cinema, and its hall is a regular host for the Ljubljana International Film Festival.

As for theatre, it can be probably said that mostly it is the more experimental and often technologically elaborate productions that are being hosted here. Relatively frequent are, for example, works by Dragan Živadinov, of the Delak Institute. Contemporary dance is also integrated into Kino Šiška's horizon and the annual CoFestival is one of bigger such enterprises in Slovenia.

Postgravity art 'informance' by the Delak Institute, whose main mission is the culturalisation of space, enabling the merging of art and science in real space. Kino Šiška Centre for Urban Culture, 2010

International cooperation

Kino Šiška Centre for Urban Culture is regularly operating in and through various European networks, and platforms, among them European Dancehouse Network, Liveurope, Trans Europe Halles, etc. It participates in various EU funded projects, among them Quantum Music (exploring the connection between music and quantum physics) and [modul-dance] (supporting the development and mobility of dance artists).

A fairly recent (2017) such project is called Innovation Network of European Showcases, realised together with about ten other partners (the leader of the project is GET a GIG GmbH (DE).

External links

Gallery

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

Frédéric Nevchehirlian, poet and a musician from Marseille, France, performing on Druga Godba Festival at Kino Šiška Centre for Urban Culture, 2010

Peyoti for President, multi-ethnic collective of musicians from London, UK, performing on Druga Godba Festival at Kino Šiška Centre for Urban Culture, 2010

Nevchehirlian (Marseille, France) performing at Kino Šiška, during Druga godba Festival Ljubljana, 2010

The visual identity of the MENT Ljubljana festival in 2024.

Opening of the 2015 Independent Biennial took place at the Kino Šiška Centre for Urban Culture

Katalena performing at Kino Šiška Centre for Urban Culture, 2013

Barely Modern performing at Kino Šiška Centre for Urban Culture, 2012

The Stroj performing at Kino Šiška Centre for Urban Culture, 2014

Klemen Klemen featuring in the concert by Ali En at Kino Šiška in Ljubljana, 2009

Concert by Mudhoney in Kino Šiška in Ljubljana, 2009

One of two technically equipped and adaptable multi-functional halls: the large Katedrala Hall can hold from 800 to 1000 visitors standing for music concerts, Kino Šiška Centre for Urban Culture

Postgravity art 'informance' by the Delak Institute, whose main mission is the culturalisation of space, enabling the merging of art and science in real space. Kino Šiška Centre for Urban Culture, 2010

Blaž performing at Kino Šiška Centre for Urban Culture, TRESK Festival, 2016.

Dandelion Children performing at Kino Šiška Centre for Urban Culture, 2016.

Dežurni krivci performing at Kino Šiška Centre for Urban Culture, 2016.

Nikki Louder performing at Kino Šiška Centre for Urban Culture, 2016.

Nikki Louder, Kino Šiška Centre for Urban Culture, 2016.

Nesesari Kakalulu performing at Kino Šiška Centre for Urban Culture, TRESK Festival, 2017.

Smrt boga in otrok performing at Kino Šiška Centre for Urban Culture, TRESK Festival, 2017.

Pero Lovšin – Ti lahko, music documentary premiere at Kino Šiška Centre for Urban Culture, 2018.

The three-piece alternative rock band Biffy Clyro on the big stage of Kino Šiška, 2016

The main entrance to Kino Šiška, 2017

A compilation of posters of past Kino Šiška's events, changed every few years or so, 2017

The back entrance to Kino Šiška Centre for Urban Culture. Back when Kino Šiška was a cinema, this was where you left the auditorium after the movie ended, 2017.

During the day the entry lobby of Kino Šiška Centre for Urban Culture is a bar, often populated by the denizens of the Šiška Cultural Quarter, 2017

The garden in front of Kino Šiška Centre for Urban Culture, 2017

The exhibition space known as Kamera in Kino Šiška is most often used for exhibitions and lectures, 2017

The small hall of Kino Šiška, called Komuna, can host about 200 people. It is mostly used for concerts, lectures and round tables.

Koala Voice at Kino Šiška Centre for Urban Culture in a theatre performance by Vlado G. Repnik (GVR babaLAN Institute), 2015

Koala Voice performing at Kino Šiška Centre for Urban Culture in a theatre performance by Vlado G. Repnik, produced by GVR babaLAN Institute, 2015

Mina Špiler, a vocalist preforming with the Laibach group in concert at Kino Šiška in Ljubljana, 2012

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