Kuma International

Kuma International Center for Visual Arts from
Post-Conflict Societies

On August 17th, The Pledge from the Bronze Age (Zakletva iz bronzanog doba) had its world premiere at the 32nd Sarajevo ...
20/08/2026

On August 17th, The Pledge from the Bronze Age (Zakletva iz bronzanog doba) had its world premiere at the 32nd Sarajevo Film Festival to a full house ❤️

Rooted in Ferida Abdagić’s own family history, the film begins with the ruins of a house burned during the war and an unexpected encounter with traces of a much more distant past. From there, it opens questions about memory, loss, inheritance and the stories we carry across generations.

At Kuma we see more and more artists, friends and colleagues around us turning to these histories and finding their own ways of giving them a voice. We are happy to support projects that create space for difficult stories to be shared, and for the connections, understanding and even beauty that can emerge through this process.

Congratulations Ferida on your first film and its first encounter with an audience ❤️

The Pledge from the Bronze Age / Zakletva iz bronzanog doba
Written and directed by Ferida Abdagić
Produced by Claudia Zini and Ilija Tiricovski
Creative and executive production: KREDO & Kuma International
Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2026

💌A different kind of summer at Kuma International.After two days surrounded by artworks and conversations, we gathered i...
15/07/2026

💌A different kind of summer at Kuma International.

After two days surrounded by artworks and conversations, we gathered in silence for Act of Listening: Tuned to Elsewheres, a collective listening session developed through the archive of Radio Elsewheres.

Together, we listened to a curated sound collage composed of testimonies, field recordings, radio transmissions, sound art, music, and sonic fragments.

What does listening produce in the body, in memory, in imagination, in relation to others?

Through drawing, writing, and other immediate responses, the session invited us to slow down during a very hectic week in Sarajevo, and to listen more carefully—to ourselves, to one another, and to the sounds around us.

A heartfelt thank you to everyone who joined us for this final event and so warmly embraced our very first listening session. Thank you to Manifesto Gallery for hosting us, to Haris Sahačić for his technical expertise and generous support, and to photographer Amina Imamović for capturing these moments so beautifully.

See you soon. 💙

💌A different kind of summer at Kuma International.Over two evenings at Manifesto Gallery, Unboxing and the conversation ...
13/07/2026

💌A different kind of summer at Kuma International.

Over two evenings at Manifesto Gallery, Unboxing and the conversation that followed brought together artworks, stories, and reflections on war, displacement, memory, and care through perspectives from Ukraine and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

A huge thank you to Alona Karavai for trusting us with this beautiful and generous project, and to Manifesto Gallery for hosting it. Thank you to everyone who came, listened, shared, and spent time with us during such a busy and intense week in Sarajevo. It meant a lot to see so many familiar faces and to meet so many wonderful new people.

With works by .room1, , .today, , .ochi, .valentyna, , , and leo_trotsenko.

Special thanks to photographer Amina Imamović for capturing these moments so beautifully.💛

👥This summer, Kuma International expands beyond the classroom with a three-day public programme exploring artistic respo...
09/06/2026

👥This summer, Kuma International expands beyond the classroom with a three-day public programme exploring artistic responses and curatorial practices in relation to war, displacement, and memory through perspectives emerging from Ukraine and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Hosted by Manifesto Gallery, the programme opens with Unboxing, a conversation and participatory session by Ukrainian cultural worker Alona Karavai that invites audiences to collectively unpack a box of art objects, explore radically different perspectives on the war in Ukraine, and take part in curating an exhibition together.

The programme continues with a conversation between Alona Karavai and curators Adna Muslija and Claudia Zini, reflecting on artistic and curatorial practices in times of war, and concludes with a listening session led by Claudia Zini and Velibor Bozovic, developed in partnership with Radio Elsewheres.

💌Everyone is welcome. Participation is free and no registration is required, though we’d be happy to hear from you if you plan to join us.

The programme is realized with the support of Asortymentna Kimnata and Socially Engaged Arts.
manifesto

💌We are so happy to welcome back Giulia Casartelli, this time as a grantee of the Culture Moves Europe mobility programm...
20/05/2026

💌We are so happy to welcome back Giulia Casartelli, this time as a grantee of the Culture Moves Europe mobility programme.

Giulia is spending two months in Sarajevo in residence with us. Together, we are developing a new long-term project: a travelling autobiographical writing workshop.

Throughout 2027, six participants will meet four times across four different cities in Bosnia and Herzegovina to write their own stories. Through reading, drawing, breathing, and walking together, we hope to create a space where words, memories, and experiences can emerge.

We are very much looking forward to this time together in Sarajevo and to developing this exciting new project together.

Good luck to Giulia! ♥️

💌 Last week of March, we had the pleasure of working on the collaborative programme Neighbourhoods. BiH × GER in partner...
02/04/2026

💌 Last week of March, we had the pleasure of working on the collaborative programme Neighbourhoods. BiH × GER in partnership with the BridgeEast Project (Düsseldorf), bringing together local and international artists to explore and reflect on contemporary art from Bosnia and Herzegovina, memory, and cultural production in post-war contexts.

Over six days, we hosted lectures, studio visits, and city walks by Aline Cateux, Lejla Hodžić, Lejla Odobašić Novo, Aida Šehović, Nihad Kreševljaković, and Haris Šahačić and we were welcomed by Adna Muslija at .manifesto. We also spent one day in Srebrenica, visiting the Memorial Center, while creating space for participants’ own artistic contributions.
The programme was guided by Valeriya Boyko, Velibor Božović, and Claudia Zini.

We were grateful to work and exchange ideas in the beautiful and welcoming space of association.
We are deeply thankful to the BridgeEast Project for their trust, and to all participants for making this an intense and generous week, filled with curiosity, openness, and care. Special thanks to our guest speakers for sharing their knowledge with such sensitivity and respect for Sarajevo and the history of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

We’re especially happy that local participants Amna Hadžić, Milena Ivić, Haris Šahačić, and Denis Haračić will continue into the second phase of the project in fall 2026, culminating in a group exhibition in Düsseldorf.☺️

📷 As always, thank you Amina Hecimović for the beautiful photo documentation.

👏🏻Our founder and director Claudia Zini has been selected as an Allianz Foundation Fellow.The Allianz Foundation Fellows...
13/03/2026

👏🏻Our founder and director Claudia Zini has been selected as an Allianz Foundation Fellow.

The Allianz Foundation Fellowship supports people working across art, research and civil society who are addressing the urgent challenges of our time and imagining new ways of responding to injustice and division.

“For the past decade, my work as an art historian, curator and researcher has been rooted in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where I founded Kuma International, a non-profit research and educational platform dedicated to the visual arts of post-conflict societies. Through research, exhibitions and educational programs, Kuma explores how artistic practices respond to war, genocide and trauma, and how culture can create spaces for dialogue, memory and long-term processes of healing.

This fellowship arrives at a very particular moment in my life, as I reflect on the past decade of work and try to understand where it might evolve from here. It offers something incredibly valuable: time and space to pause and think about how the methodologies developed through my work at Kuma might connect with other societies affected by war and displacement, and how these exchanges might contribute to new forms of dialogue, solidarity and shared understanding.

I feel honored to join this network of fellows across Europe and deeply grateful to for this trust.”

We are so proud of our 💛☺️

20/01/2026

Thankful for 2025💛
As we look back on the past year, we’re reminded that our work lives in people, in meetings, exchanges, laughter, questions, and quiet moments. We’re deeply grateful to everyone who was part of this journey, and we step into the new year with openness and excitement for what we’ll continue creating together.

Join us in 2026🙏🏻

For the third year in a row, Kuma International was proud to partner with Radio Elsewheres, an online and terrestrial lo...
11/12/2025

For the third year in a row, Kuma International was proud to partner with Radio Elsewheres, an online and terrestrial low-power digital radio-art project that explores movement and displacement—whether voluntary or forced—of human and non-human bodies, languages, ideas, recipes, botany, musical tuning systems, and stories. The project is conceptualized, produced, and curated by artists Velibor Božović and Steve Bates, together with Kuma’s founder Claudia Zini.

This year, we travelled to Windsor, Canada, for the radio’s third iteration. [re.03] broadcast live for three weeks, 24/7, from within Velibor’s exhibition Elsewhere, on Record at Art Windsor–Essex (curated by Emily McKibbon), bringing together more than 60 artists and contributors from around the world. Field recordings, eco-acoustics, radio essays, live transmissions, testimonies, and sound compositions wove together into a temporary shared acoustic space where radio and sound art met social engagement.

Radio Elsewheres has been creating environments where artists, storytellers, and listeners can reflect on movement, memory, and displacement through dialogue and sound. Each iteration listens across geographies marked by genocide, displacement, and colonial violence, carrying these memories into a shared practice of listening and solidarity beyond borders. These concerns lie at the heart of Kuma’s mission as well, making our collaboration with Radio Elsewheres a natural extension of our work with post-conflict art, lived memory, and communities shaped by forced movement.

Travelling with Radio Elsewheres since its beginnings in Bihać in 2023 has opened new ways of seeing and listening for us. Each iteration brings new conversations, new solidarities, and new insights into how art moves across places and communities. Working with sound has also opened new possibilities for Kuma, allowing us to explore listening as a form of knowledge and care; within Radio Elsewheres we have developed the Kuma Conversations series, inviting artists to share their stories, art practices, and reflections in response to the radio’s themes.

Working from Windsor, another border town like Bihać, offered Kuma a powerful new perspective. Experiencing the project from this context deepened our understanding of borders not only as lines of separation, but as spaces of listening, care, and transformation. It also marked an important step in Kuma’s ongoing effort to expand internationally and engage with places whose histories echo our own.

🔗 The Radio Elsewheres archive is available on the project’s website https://www.radioelsewheres.net/ 💛

Back in November, Kuma International was invited by Rete ONG ETS to curate the Autumn School of the Art for Change proje...
02/12/2025

Back in November, Kuma International was invited by Rete ONG ETS to curate the Autumn School of the Art for Change project in Torino — marking our first official collaboration in Italy.

From 17 to 20 November, at Fondazione Amendola, we led four days of workshops, screenings, and discussion dedicated to art, memory, and gender-based violence.

We worked together with Forme in Bilico APS — artist Irene Pittatore, trainer Isabelle Demangeat, and curator Lorena Tadorni — who presented the powerful project L’amavo troppo e le ho sparato. Photographer Fiorella Costantini shared Stories of Legacy, giving voice to Bosnian youth born after the war and offering a perspective of coexistence and future-building. As part of the programme, filmmaker Ado Hasanović presented his film My Father’s Diaries, opening a collective reflection on memory, responsibility, and inherited narratives.

The Autumn School addressed gender-based violence in its broadest sense, not only violence against women, but all forms of violence rooted in gendered power imbalances — through photography, film, and artistic research. Drawing on our long experience collecting and reworking, through art, the stories of survivors of violence in Bosnia and Herzegovina and other post war contexts, we aimed to show how every form of violence, whether against a community or an individual, begins with a mechanism of dehumanization that we can and must resist.

A heartfelt thank you to all participants, to Fondazione Amendola, and to our wonderful project partners.

ART FOR CHANGE was promoted by Rete ONG ETS, Forme in Bilico APS, and ASAI, in collaboration with Accademia Cirko Vertigo, Mamre, Maurice GLBTQ APS, UCI – Uniti per crescere insieme, and Kuma International, co-funded by the European Union and the Piedmont Region through the Connect for Global Changeprogramme promoted by Rete Ong

Photos: Fiorella Costantini

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