Post Archive: Mentors

Nada Arnaut would describe herself as a very intuitive person, working in the field of visual art with a minimalistic style and a passion to learn from patterns of nature, which is both complex and simple at the same time.

Everything started when she was at a young age, as a form of child’s play, as she was trying to mimic architectural drawings from her parents’ work. Her formal education includes a BA and MA in Visual Arts. She’s participated in many open calls, art contests, exhibitions, festivals, both as a student and nowadays as a mid-age artist and professor. Thanks to her experience, she’s described as a lover of challenging positions. Her experience with projects in the cultural sector is very intense, doing collaborative group work with both artists and other various professionals, which enables her to articulate new levels of forms, thinking and presenting fresh ideas and concepts.

Loving the working process and learning new things is what gives her immense motivation. She finds the relevance in working on the ReCulture project primarily in that it entails an important cooperation between very influential cultural institutions in the Western Balkans, and subsequently provide an opportunity to change the means of visual language, which are still confined in the social communism era, and lastly, it provides an opportunity to work with young and smart people with fresh ideas, bringing a new wave into the regional art and design scene. She would like to see better design in public spaces in the Balkan region and she feels that through this project that goal will be achieved.

Wolfgang Fiel is a Designer, taking the broad liberties of applying the term “Designer” to everything he does: Art, Architecture, Scenography, Business Management, Strategy, Research, Team Building, Technology, etc. He studied architecture at the Vienna University of Technology and the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London.

He teaches at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and is the cofounder and creative director of the Institute of Cultural Policy (iCP). The Institute represents a multidisciplinary platform for exchanging knowledge and skills in architecture, art, and science, creating and nurturing cultural values through design. In 2006 iCP was invited to participate in the New Italian Pavilions presentation at 10th International Venice Biennale for Architecture.

Wolfgang describes himself as fiercely curious and passionate, saying he’s in the fortunate position to be able to do what he loves. What keeps him going therefore is the next challenge, fostering the spirit of the child in him to keep on dreaming (big)! He’s worked on a multitude of cultural projects, the last big one of which was an international travelling exhibition commissioned by the Austrian Ministry of Culture, covering the recent history of architecture and craft in Vorarlberg, Austria.

In his view, the core potential of the ReCulture project is the coming together of great minds and young talent from all over Europe. This is the kind of spirit needed to foster much more: inclusivity and creativity across disciplinary divides. Having had his fair share of competitions and projects, he’s looking forward to sharing what he knows, through mentoring the young and talented designers that will be part of the ReCulture project!

Constantin Demner founded Studio Elastik in 2001. The studio’s vision has always been to enable work with international clients without being bound to any specific space – already long before dislocated work became a thing. While traveling a lot and specializing in remote and nomadic work, his current home base is in the most eastern city of the western world and the most western city of the eastern world, Wien/Vienna. Constantin works mainly in the fields of music, art, and cultural matters and his output covers the entire visual spectrum spanning graphic design, art direction, typography, type design, branding, printmaking, illustration, and cinematography / motion graphics. The studio expands and contracts depending on the projects they work on.

Constantin holds an MA from the former LCP London College of Printing (now LCC London College of Communication) in MA Typo/graphic studies. Clients include Salonplafond at MAK Museum of Applied Arts Vienna, the University of Applied Arts Vienna, Werkraum Bregenzerwald, derStandard, Creative Club Austria, Ninja Tune, Mute Records, Infectious Music, Bottletop and many more. Besides running the studio Constantin lectures at the Digital Arts Department at the Institute of Fine Arts and Media at the University of Applied Arts Vienna – die Angewandte.

To him, the value of the ReCulture project is sharing the wide range of good practice the EU partners gained working globally with young and talented designers, who will combine their own ideas in contributing to the cultural scene of the Western Balkans.

Nemanja Mićević works as graphic designer at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Republic of Srpska (MoCARS), Bosnia and Herzegovina.

His passion for art showed early and led to his studies at the Academy of Arts in Banja Luka, which he completed in 2007. Two years later he obtained a Master’s degree in Theory of Art and Media on Interdisciplinary Studies at University of Arts in Belgrade, Serbia, and gained improved knowledge of art as a whole. During his art education he worked as a freelance graphic designer.

Nemanja began working for the MoCARS in 2018 and since then his life has turned upside down thanks to a lot of local, regional and international projects. At the Museum, besides graphic design (exhibition, catalog and packaging design, illustrations, and advertising materials), occasionally he would be in charge of campaigns, logistics, production, exhibition setup, photo documentation, video production, web administration, and motion graphics. He was in charge of creating the visual identity for the Bosnia and Herzegovina Pavilion at Venice Biennial in 2013 and 2017 and those projects definitely pushed his boundaries. His portfolio showcases working on the visual identity of  Nadežda Petrović’s 30th Memorial (2020), and exhibition designs such as: Damien Hirst New Religion (2016, MoCARS), Grayson Perry The Vanity of Small Differences (2017, Art Gallery of Bosnia and Herzegovina, MoCARS), Brian Eno 77 Million Paintings (2018, History Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina), and Perceptions (2019, MoCARS).

Nemanja sees the overall aim of the ReCulture project as very important for all its participants. He outlines that it’s a phenomenal opportunity to gain a modernized visual and communication style of Western Balkan cultural institutions, as well as a chance for young and talented designers to improve their knowledge and connections. He’s proud to be part of this great project and very excited with every next step of it.

Adela Zejnilović is a Montenegrin graphic designer and assistant professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Cetinje. She started her education in graphic design in Prishtina, and completed her undergraduate and graduate studies at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Cetinje. She is currently a doctoral student at the Faculty of Applied Arts, University of Arts in Belgrade.

Her experience as a graphic designer spans over more than two decades, which she acquired working in advertising agencies, companies and with freelance clients. The variety of clients she worked with allowed her to show diversity in design, through different themes and forms varying from visual identities through book design to commercial campaigns. Although she is best expressed through design; typography and type design are the field in which her passion lies and a place of continuous research. Pushing boundaries in her work, finding new solutions and experimenting is her driving power.

She considers being an educator one of the most important segments of her work. Sharing knowledge with every new generation of prosperous students is an obligation, privilege and honor.

She took part in numerous competitions, both as a student and as a professional, and is the laureate of several design awards.

To her, the ReCulture project is a valuable place for gaining new experiences for young designers, possibilities for new connections and cooperations, all with the aim of creating contemporary visual identities. All of which will contribute to the design scene of the Western Balkans.

Mane Radmanović is a visual artist and a graphic designer. He studied at the College of Fine and Applied Arts and at the University of Applied Arts in Belgrade.

His interests revolve around visual arts and experimental approaches to graphic design, as well as education, organising numerous graphic design workshops, festivals and conferences across Serbia. Apart from design, Radmanović is active as a photographer and a member of the contemporary photography collective Belgrade Raw.

His graphic design practice spans over more than two decades and includes diverse interests and projects, most notably in the field of independent culture and in collaboration with cultural institutions (galleries, museums, cultural centres). In 2018, at the regional competition for the best graphic design “Grifon”, he received recognition for his continuous authorial contribution to graphic design in the field of independent cultural scene and contemporary art in Serbia and in 2021 he won the main “Grifon” Award.

Mane considers projects such as ReCulture to be very important and valuable, primarily for the sake of better mapping the design scene of the Western Balkans, but also for the main beneficiaries of the project – young, talented designers. They need such professional experience, which is essentially rare in the world of design. Their engagement is very delicately and thoroughly defined so that they have a full experience – from working with relevant mentors in the field of graphic design, to the very outcome of the project. Also, projects such as ReCulture are important for cultural institutions, because they actually show openness to cooperation and trust in the work of students, organization and projects like this.

Mane lives and works in Belgrade.