Counterpoint: Narrating Migration from the Periphery as Centre
The project aimed at internationalising the careers of emerging artists through cooperation between festivals and explored the diverse aspects of European migration. In 2023 the project focused on the Poland-based Armenian poet Tatev Chakhian who participated in festivals in the Czech Republic, Greece, Malta and Wales. The 2024 iteration highlighted the work of the Bosnian Croatian poet Marija Dejanović who engaged with artists, poets and musicians during three short residencies. The first, with the Welsh festival Gwŷl Arall took place in July in Caernarfon where Marija collaborated with the Welsh poet Lowri Hedd Vaughan. In August she appeared in the Thessalian Poetry Festival in Greece with musician, singer and composer Kreon Kanakaris, and in November 2024 she spent a week in Prague during the Den poezie / Poetry Day festival collaborating with the Ukrainian-Czech poet Iryna Zahladko and Czech musician BabylonEly.
Marija Dejanović (1992) was born in Bosnia and Herzegovina and grew up in Croatia, where she and her family came as refugees. She graduated in Comparative Literature and Pedagogy from the University of Zagreb. She writes poetry, literary reviews and theatre plays, and her poetry books have won or have been shortlisted for key literary awards in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. She has published three collections to date, Etika kruha i konja (Ethics of Bread and Horses, 2018), Središnji god (Heartwood, 2019), and Dobrota razdvaja dan i noć (2021), published in English as Kindness Separates Night From Day in 2023. She was also awarded by the Croatian Ministry of Culture for her dramatic text Ne moramo više govoriti, svi su otišli (We Don’t Have to Speak Anymore, They Are All Gone). She has presented her poetry at international festivals in the Balkans region and in Germany, and has been selected for writing residencies in Serbia, Romania and Germany.
Watch a short video trailer about the project:
The full performance at the Den poezie festival in Prague festival is recorded here:
The project was co-financed by the European Fund for Emerging Artists and co-organised by Culture Reset, Den poezie, Literature Across Frontiers, Gwŷl Arall and Thessalian Poetry Festival.