Kick off conference has been realised in Belgrade 15/01 - 17/01/2021 in the New Gallery of Visual Arts and online on the youtube channel and on the facebook page (riseofwomen.balkan).

Organized by Beoart Contemporary, a partner from Serbia in the project "The Rise of Women in Culture in the Western Balkans", co-financed by the European Union, it is dedicated to topics addressed by the project through general activities - identities of women in contemporary visual art at the Western Balkans through cooperation and networking of curators and artists, as well as adaptation to new technologies of the modern age. Many answers to this topic were encountered through a diverse program with the participation of experts in their fields, which was initiated and moderated by Biljana Jotic.

In two days of different program content, the project team - partners (Association Fenomena https://www.fenomena.org/  - partner leader and Beoart contemporary http://beoart.blogspot.com/  from Serbia, then the Association Prizma http://www.udrugaprizma.hr/ from Croatia, NGO SPES from Montenegro, Lokarjeva Gallery https://lokarjevagalerija.splet.arnes.si/  from Slovenia and Association Sensus from Northern Macedonia) were presented. General project activities follow (communication strategy, research, documentary series and VR technologies). Guests from Sarajevo, Vildana Džekman and Saša Knežević (Foundation „Cure“, from Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina) presented the feminist festival PitchVise https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PitchWise_Festival . Sanja Solunac (visual artist and feminist activist, author of a work that is an integral part of the visual identity of the project) and Milica Ružičić (visual artist, president of the sculpture section of the Association of Fine Artists of Serbia and author of the podcast ComitetKe) presented their activism through the oldest feminist art colony and podcast - a new form of communication.



The second day of the conference was dedicated to the guidelines through the touring exhibition "Women about Women", a performance „ Traces of soft writing“, intervention on skin by Ivana Ranisavljevic ( http://www.g12hub.com/sh/artist/ivana-ranisavljevic ) and a panel discussion with general topics on women's identities in contemporary visual arts (participants: Dubravka Đurić, professor at the Faculty of Honey and Communications; Aleksandra Lazar, curator art collections of the Wiener Staedttische Foundation, independent curator and researcher in London; Iana Stantieru, executive director of the European Art Gallery and Ivana Ivković, visual artist). The moderators of the panel were Biljana Jotic and Masha Elezovic.



In the gallery space and organisation of Beoart contemporary association there were a gathering with artists from Serbia (Andjela Grabez, Gordana Belic, Vesna Vesic, Natalija Miladinovic, Leonora Vekic) in cooperation with the new Gallery of Visual Arts, as well as a performance by Ivana Ranisavjevic (selcted and curated by Biljana Jotic), and outside the gallery is a study visit to current art exhibitions of 21st century art in Belgrade, in collaboration with the Walking Belgrade agency https://belgradewalking.com/ .