Organ Vida: Support the Biggest Balkan Photography Festival

Croatia –  

International photography festival Organ Vida, held in the capital of Croatia – Zagreb, has started a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter in order to realize this year’s seventh edition which will also be the biggest one so far.

For the past seven years the festival has been organized by the non-profit and NGO photography association Organ Vida which consists of a creative team of young professionals and freelancers. Their aim is to promote Croatian and international emerging and established photographers, to reflect on the medium of photography in a wider societal context through presenting works which carry relevant stories from around the world and to promote critical thinking in their public. That their goal is reached every year is proven by more than 150 artists which have been presented at the festival, applications to the open call which come from over 50 countries of the world, as well as by a large international public which follows and visits the festival.

The festival is held every year in September in Zagreb, where major names from the photography world gather in order to strengthen the intercultural dialogue. For the duration of two weeks and at several locations, the festival offers a number of exhibitions, theoretical lectures and panels on contemporary photography, artist talks, educative workshops, portfolio reviews, and concerts.
Every year the festival is preceded by an international contest under a given theme – this year’s theme being Boundaries. From September 3^rd to September 18^th the festival and all its content will be realized under this given theme at the Klovićevi Dvori Gallery.

“Considering that the festival and its program grow every year and the association finds it harder every year to financially cover the expenses of the festival production and realization of ideas, the decision to start the Kickstarter campaign was more than logical. The crowdfunding model of financing is familiar to us, the Kickstarter campaign is interesting to young people and the festival itself connects with a wide international community”, the organizers explain.

The Organ Vida Kickstarter campaign starts on Monday, May 25^th at 9 AM (GMT+1) and it will last until June 24^th at 9 AM  (GMT+1). In that time, the aim is to collect 9.500 Canadian dollars and prizes and thanks will be given even to the smallest donations of one dollar. For larger donations the organizers have prepared valuable prizes which aim to include their supporters even more into the festival community.  Some of the prizes include festival T-shirts, posters signed by the festival finalists, specially designed OV by Borovo Startas shoes, the possibility to attend professional workshops, dinner with the invited artists and the organization team or a visit to Zagreb during the festival and private guidance through all of the festival exhibitions.

The funding collected through Kickstarter will be used for the production of the exhibition material, printing of promotional material and catalogues, hospitality services, technical resources, organization expenses and campaign expenses. The preparation for this year’s crowdfunding campaign was long and demanding, and the whole Organ Vida organization team was included in the preparation. The head of the campaign was Medina Rešić. Matija Pekić shot the campaign video, Alma Šavar and Anta Bučević created the visual identity, Karla Milevoj is in charge of the PR and the assistants were Hanna Kunić, Ana Marjanović, Matej Subotić, Marin Šatović, Ana Pavlić and Marko Mihaljević with the creative guidance of Ana-Marija Petričević and Marina Paulenka.

For more information, please visit the Kickstarter page here or contact the organization team.

Feature Image – Venetia Deardon