Gradić Fest

The Street Musicians Festival, Cinema City, Pop Up (Berberaj & Public P), Scenatoria, Suburbium, Fruškać, Happy Trash Production, Ugrip and AAaaa Festival are all joining forces from 1st to 3rd September 2017 on the streets of the Lower Town in Petrovaradin with the idea of reviving Gradić through music, film and art performances.

The idea for joining forces was born last year, when the Street Musicians Festival – with the slogan Let’s be Gradić – relocated to the Lower Town with the intention of awakening and reviving this community. Then numerous associations, festivals and individuals who also wanted to participate in the initiative for enriching this locality, which had been neglected for years, joined the project.

The vision of the Lower Town in Petrovaradin as an exciting artistic and tourist quarter and the natural extension of the pedestrian zone in the center of the city of Novi Sad will become reality during the three-day Gradić Fest, when music, film, art and entertainment will all come together on the streets of the Lower Town.

Last year, the festival’s program mostly took place on the right side of the Lower Town compared to Beogradska Street. The streets where this year’s Gradić Fest will take place are the following: Beogradska Street, Lisinskog Street, Vladimira Nazora Street, Trg Vladike Nikolaja Square, Štrosmajerova Street, Rampin put (the path that goes down form the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments of Vojvodina to the steps of the Petrovaradin Fortress), as well as the green surfaces behind the gate Beogradska kapija.

The festival has always gravitated towards clean, acoustic and chamber spaces which enable an intimate contact between the performers and the audience, and as a consequence we feel that the spaces of the Lower Town are extremely suitable for this kind of happening because they contribute to creating direct connections among the cultural heritage, public spaces, street performance art and visitors.

In order to make Gradić Fest even more closely associated with the spaces in which it will take place, the creative team of the festival has come up with this year’s festival’s visual identity which includes recognizable elements of the Lower Town. Patterns and colors which evoke the Lower Town’s cobblestones, facades and rooftops show the visual uniqueness of The Lower Town of the Petrovaradin Fortress, which is called Gradić.

Like the 16 previous years, this year’s program includes performances by artists from Serbia, the region, Europe, but also by artists from other, distant countries, and it offers music performances, film and video projections, art performances, ambient theatre plays, art installations etc.
Through its new form – Gradić Fest – the Street Musicians Festival will give opportunity to all those who are interested to actively participate in the creation of a new and urban environment, which is, first and foremost, necessary to us. Let’s build a new festival and let’s be all together a part of a new story.

The Street Musicians Festival – Gradić Fest – is organized by the Art Association Inbox with the sponsorship of the city of Novi Sad and the Provincial Secretariat for Culture and Public Information.

During the planning and the execution of the program, the Festival is striving to use as much as possible the already existing infrastructure of the Lower Town and to include numerous local organizations, enterprises and individuals in order to adapt the activities of the festival to the needs of the community and in order that the inhabitants can actively join the project.

Festival locations:

• Beogradska Street
• Vladimira Nazora Street,
• Trg Vladike Nikolaja Square
• Štrosmajerova Street
• Rampin put (the path that goes down form the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments of Vojvodina to the steps of the Petrovaradin Fortress)
• Gun powder mill Barutana “Josif” with its surroundings