FORTY YEARS OF INFANT
a photography exhibition
Branislav Lučić, Serbia
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The Infant festival appeared as an active response to the disappearance of the Yugoslav festival ‘Small pozorje’ which existed for more than two decades. It was also born out of the wish to open a completely new space for the exchange of cultural values with the world in these times that are not favourable for culture and communication, and to provide an adequate context for that small but significant creative energy of the young who create something new here, so that they can acquire the realistic information about themselves, their product and new theatre innovations based either on some classical elements or they introduce technological, media and other innovative forms.
As an experimental space of the new theatre the festival Infant cherishes only the unusual theatrical forms that promote new meaning categories and disturb classical cognitive clichés. Moreover, those whose subversivenesspresents significant challengeto the horizon of expectations, destroy habitual norms. The thing that is important for this kind of theatrical practice is high awarenessof the process of work involved in an (artistic)act. This kind of awareness is not only critical of the established theatre, but is also more radical in criticism of the social negativities and phenomena. Besides these, this festival intends to point to the key lines of the development of new and alternative theatre, as well as to make an outline sketching the diversity of explorations, the great influence of technologies, machines, computers and media in which man becomes a prosthetic device. Moreover, to keep reaffirming, through various forms of action, that the process of exploration is more important for a theatrical production than even the very artefact and that spectator-participant has been given a completely new,active and responsible position.
The programme structure of the festival differs a lot from similar festivals in our country. Consisting of a number of segments, it envelops a variety of programmes: from full-length shows in the main programme, street spectacles, through workshops, exhibitions, performance art, symposium, to festival productions. The diverse festival practice has confirmed a need, which is more than obvious, for continual fostering of the production segment of the festival. The Infant’s productions are a key argument point in an essential exchange of artistic ideas, artefacts, because they not only affirm the high level of our productions, but in the context of international festivals, reveal serious potentials of the creators in the new theatre.