Students who were kicked out of the SKC building last year presented the first and only issue of the Student Cultural Magazine. They did not manage to free the space permanently, but they preserved the idea of SKC as a place of freedom and resistance even outside the institution
In February 2025, on the wave of student rebellion, a self-organized group of students blocked the Student Cultural Center (SKC) with the idea of turning this cultural institution back into a space for critical thinking, free creation and a quality cultural program.
From that idea, the Student Cultural Magazine – SKČ was born, the first and only issue of which was presented this Friday, June 5, in front of the SKC building, on the corner of Kralja Milan and Resavska Street in Belgrade.
The magazine could be taken with a donation, and the presentation was accompanied by a street gallery, alternative musical sounds and experimental poetry.
What’s between the covers?
Already on the first pages of the magazine, in the “SKC Recap” section, students explain why they entered the building more than a year ago:
“Revolted by the long-term lack of programs and the neglect of SKC as an institution, the students opted for a blockade. This blockade or, as we like to call it – liberation, was inspired by the need to create a youth culture and a space for it.”
SKČ is a hybrid magazine. It alternates between poetry, prose, interviews, personal stories and theoretical texts, as well as a critical review of the “Expo” project. Students gathered around the “Ensemble Generalstab” initiative wrote about the struggle to preserve cultural heritage.
In the theoretical texts, the notion of the avant-garde and the meaning of avant-garde action are re-examined, while the thoughts of Michel Foucault serve as a starting point for thinking about strategies of resistance in the present moment.
The magazine abounds with letters and personal stories of students – about walks through Serbia, cycling to Strasbourg, collectivity and togetherness, but also returning to the questions “who am I” and what is my “purpose in life”.
The authors often look at these questions through the experience of blockades – how much they changed them and what they learned about themselves during the previous year. In the text “Ja Vol 28”, Olga Mirković writes: “Perhaps the goal is not to find a final answer, but to learn to live with the question, in constant movement between different interpretations of ourselves and the world around us.”
Poetry and prose levitate between modernism, postmodernism and new realism. Sometimes they place distinct individuality as the foundation of identity, and sometimes they try to see humanity from a completely different perspective – through another being or another code.
An important part of the magazine is also the proposal of the “Staro sajmište” memorial park project, under the title “Building on layers of narrative sediment”. Nina Čegar suggests how to preserve a space burdened by history, but also to restore its relevance for the future.
Her idea is to approach the Old Fairground integrally and to reactualize its value as a public space. Thus, it would become not only a guardian of collective memory, but also a symbol of transformation and future changes.
How the number was created: one and only
At the beginning of March last year, the SKC team invited interested students on Instagram to send texts, photos and graphic creations for the needs of the first edition. When the papers arrived, work on the magazine began.
However, at the end of July 2025, the police, accompanied by Informer television cameras, entered the SKC building and kicked out the students who were staying there.
A few days later The Student Cultural Center was visited by the President of the Assembly of Serbia, Ana Brnabić and Minister of Education Dejan Vuk Stanković, accusing the students of having devastated the space and “stolen” the inventory.
Although they were left without premises, the students did not give up on the magazine. The editors continued to gather in different places in the city, which is why the work on the first and only issue lasted for almost a year, one of the editors of the magazine, Dea Jovanović, explained to “Vreme”.
“We needed two more months to collect donations and organize an event where we will present SKČ,” she adds.
The creation of freedom does not end at the end of the number
SKČ is colorful, playful and visually rich, but what is written in it is neither infantile nor superficial. Illustrations and photos were prepared by students of different faculties, and the reader already at the beginning receives instructions on how to “make” the magazine.
Successful “making”, he writes, is only possible if “you allow yourself to become a guide through the printed space, with questions, with insecurities, but also with complete freedom to think and be who you are”.
After reading, everyone can decide for themselves what to do with the magazine: burn it, tear it up, frame it, give it away or leave it on a park bench for someone else to try to “consume” it.
The first issue of SKČ was presented in front of the building from which the students were expelled almost a year earlier. They did not manage to return permanently to the space itself, but they took out of it exactly what they brought into it – the idea that SKC should once again become a place of youth culture, free thinking and resistance.
Because, as it says on the pages of the magazine, “creating freedom is not a job that ends at the end of the issue.”
Source: Vreme
