In order to jump into preparations for our regular Autumn season, first I would love to summarize in few lines the first part of the year for our organization. Being from last year for the first time a non-governmental organization on our own feet, for us this year was heavily oriented towards making important and stable ground to start self -sustainable entity in long terms.

Since the organization is based more on continuity and shareable cultures currently we are working more on local development in our own lab. It doesn’t mean we are not internationally present or something, on the contrary, the Autumn in our creative spaces will be filled with international guests, the way you know us best.

Goran Mahovlić: Hacked Furby (cc), photo by Vedran Metelko (c) taken @ Soundart Incubator

What happened in the first part of the season is the fact that we itself slowly started to become what the majority of us wanted from the beginning of the lab and that’s a shared club –  hackerspace, makerspace.

Having in mind the fact that the term media lab brought us in the first 2, 5 years of existence as I’MM_ Media lab a lot of attention from the Art field, this turn to title Radiona / Makerspace on the other side brought to us more wider audience, and most important diverse members in terms of technologists, engineers and DIY / tech passionate peers.

Local community, especially micro-communities, underprivileged and new educational approaches (non-formal and formal) are getting more and more observed and supported through our lenses over time. Not to mention inclusion that has been a part of our ‘body’ from the start. Sometimes I’ve been asked about it, why we don’t talk more about it or label ourselves more in this context. Because in our mindset it’s a state of normality, no need to label something specially what you already consider to be a part of or what you are already achieving in practice.

Currently we are working more on collaborative practices and in the Autumn we will start more developed programs for our advanced participants with targeted monthly programs for specific topics like FPGA circuits, synth builders, etc. From the beginning we had a sort of a walking and flexible strategy of our development, but now with increased number of demanding audience and very, very demanding participants of our programs, the time has come… to involve more ambitious shared spaces in the hood.

Somehow seems like museums and festivals continue to like us, hence see you around soonish, if not at our events.

Have a nice soldering summer!

Deborah
Project manager / Curator for Radiona.org