Kulturno umetnisko drustvo SubArt

SubArt is a youth culture centre in Kranj, the biggest town in north-west Slovenia. The venue existed as a squat at first (since 2011) and a non-profit carrying out the activities in it was established in 2009. The mission of the organization is providing a creative space for young and artistic, imaginative and socially active people who want to co-create and not just consume the programme. Our aim is to be one of the leading producers of alternative culture events in the region while providing a space for learning, creativity and spending quality leisure time in the local community. Cooperation with similar organizations and making a tight knit community in town is one of our priorities. Since the beginnings SubArt remains one of the most active grassroot alternative culture producer that doubles as a youth centre. Evenings during the weekend are reserved for concerts of various genres, and other different cultural public events (theatre, dance performances, exhibitions, film nights) and the activities during the week days range from organizing multimedia, art and crafts workshops, as well as offering the space for other groups and organizations to use. We try fill at least three afternoons during the week with some kind of program, but even if there is none visible to the public eye, there is something happening behind the scenes. The majority of the activists, employees and the visitors are young adults and older teenagers. Music events during the weekend bring a bigger crowd, up to 200 people of all generations from the wider region and sometimes other parts of Slovenia or neighbouring countries, while smaller, more educational events attract from 5 to 20 mostly local young people. All events are organized by or with the help of about 25 volunteers and activists, depending on the scale of the event, with the support of the few employed people (sound technician and producer, youth worker). About a hundred people are using the space on a regular to semi-regular basis, mostly in the afternoons and evenings. They are members of the bands rehearsing in the studio almost every day, skaters using the ramp at least three times a week, a new group of animal lovers that just found their home in our house is meeting every two weeks, a group of designers and our newspaper reports have weekly meetings, as well as the program team. We don’t keep a tight schedule of our non-public activities. Instead we encourage people to self-organize and self-manage the building. To keep everything running smoothly we have regular monthly meetings with everyone present in the building. An old wooden house right next to the railway was converted by the activists from a storage place into a multifunctional events venue with a cosy backstage, gallery, audio studio, skating ramp in the basement, an office and artist studio. DIY is a very important ideal that we try to follow in every aspect of our work – from maintaining the place to organizing our activities. We keep the doors to our organization, the venue and programme opened to new groups and individuals. We want to gain and spread the knowledge among our co-workers, activists, volunteers and broader public in order to improve and change and in consequence do the same with the wider community.