The “Skopje Pride Weekend 2025” festival will be held from June 3 to 14 at several cultural institutions in Skopje: MSU Skopje, MKC, KSP Centar-Jadro and Teatar Komedija. This years’ edition is curated under the theme “YUGOQUEER” which aims to explore the counter-hegemonic configurations of gender and sexual embodiment in queer (feminist) performing arts and socio-cultural practices during and after socialist Yugoslavia. It also examines the various performances by queer bodies and subjectivities in cultural and political performances, visual culture, and subcultural world-making practices.

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Consequently, the central focus of this festival edition relates to the historical and contextual nuances, critical and political bodily tactics, and affective re-articulations employed in queer and queer-feminist performative and choreographic practices in (post)Yugoslav spaces. These practices will be analyzed in relation to intersecting systems of oppression such as heteronormativity, patriarchy, ethno-nationalism, racism, authoritarianism, state violence, religious hostility, and neoliberal capitalism. The festival treats these practices as spaces for the emergence of oppositional counter-publics and minority projects with world-making potential.

Through an exhibition, discussions, performances, and dance productions, this year’s festival seeks to present historical, cultural, performative, and artistic practices with a queer and feminist dimension in Yugoslavia and the post-Yugoslav space.

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The festival begins on June 3 at the Museum of Contemporary Art – Skopje with the opening of the exhibition "PUNK. SUBCULTURE. SOCIALISM. ARCHIVES AND PHOTOGRAPHY FROM SLOVENIA". – an extensive archival exhibition of punk and queer culture from Slovenia, curated by Marina Gržinić, in collaboration with Slavčo Dimitrov, and on June 4, at the SCS Centre- Jadro, the program will continue with the symposium "On Queer Culture, the Balkans, Eastern Europe and Global Trans* Rebellions" with the participation of theorists, artists and activists: Marina Gržinić, Tjaša Kanzler, Vesna Liponić, Januš Čech and DK.

On June 5, at the Youth Cultural Centre - YCC, Alma Gačanin's performance "How Well Did You Perform Today" will be performed, in partnership with the FIRSTBORN GIRL Festival. At the end of the same week, on June 8, at the Theater Comedy, an evening of queer storytelling titled SHAME! will be held, in collaboration with PeachPreech.

On June 12, at the YCC, the dance performance "Unstable Comrades" will follow, conceived and choreographed by Igor Koruga, and on June 13, also at the YCC, the choreographic solo "ATRÁS" by Aleksandar Georgiev - Ace will be performed. The festival will conclude on June 14 at the CSC Centar-Jadro with the performance "Dissolutions" by Maja Zecho and the opening of her solo exhibition " Discomfited Futures", curated by John Blackwood.

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Check out the full program and RSVP HERE.
The poster, program catalogue and anthology of the Skopje Pride Weekend 2025 – YUGOQUEER are available HERE.

The program illuminates historical and contemporary queer cultural creation through exhibitions, symposia, performances and theoretical reflections, creating a space for critical art, affective solidarity and public imagination. Through exhibitions, discussions, performances, dance performances and knowledge distribution, the festival asks questions about the relationship of queer bodies and performances with political processes of democratization, public space, socialist emancipatory ideals, as well as the possibility of building communities and worlds of resistance.

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The curator of the festival and editor of the theoretical anthology is Slavcho Dimitrov.

The festival team consists of:

Stefan Bogeski, Manja Velichkovska, Ljubomir Faizov, Natalija Vidinska Atanasov.
The translation of the catalog from English was made by Julija Micova, while the theoretical
anthology was translated by Gracija Atanasovska, Dushica Dimitrovska, Dushica Lazova, Julija

Micova and Slavcho Dimitrov.
The publisher is Coalition MARGINS – Skopje.
Graphic design: Igor Delov.
Proofreading: Violeta Tancheva-Zlateva.
Printing: Data Pons – Skopje.

The Pride Weekend – Skopje 2025 festival is organized by Coalition MARGINS – Skopje, in cooperation with the LGBTI Support Center, and in partnership with Tiiiit! Inc., the Museum of Contemporary Art – Skopje, A.K.T; from Pforzheim, and the Research Center at the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts.

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Skopje Pride Weekend, FIRSTBORN GIRL Festival and Performance Platform dedicate June to contemporary and critical performance art in dance, theatre and visual arts, as a gesture of care, a relational, politically engaged artistic practice and an act of democratized public imagination.

We create a space for collaboration, togetherness and exchange, asking institutions to recognize and continuously support it.

The festival is supported by the Heinrich Böll Stiftung, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, A.K.T; and the Global Fund for Women.