Croatian Cultural Association (Hrvatski sabor kulture) is a non-governmental organization that covers amateur performing activities in the Republic of Croatia.

Their main event is called Razglednica (Postcard), which brings together the most successful representatives of 940 cultural and artistic associations from 9 national meetings. It is traditionally held every year, at the end of the season and program brings together the most successful of Croatian drama, music, dance, literary and other artistic amateur creativity.

Bauer studio did all the design work and I was commissioned to do the illustrations. The basic concept was to create imaginative, surreal landscapes with motifs that can be associated to specific art sections, combined with the site-specific elements of places where the meeting was held. I used collage form as the visual interpretation of creating and shaping the physical environment, because this is exactly what artists do in their local communities – they shape their artistic and cultural scene, enriching the community itself. In this case they have a much more important mission and that is approaching art to people who are not professionally educated in this specific part, but sure have an ability to perform like they are.

This time Razglednica was held at Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall in Zagreb, and it was really nice to see our work on the big screen in such a fancy hall Some of the performances were absolutely stunning, it always amazes me how hard it is to draw a line between amateur and professional performers.
Amateur performers are actually brilliant because they’re not burdened with “academic” approach, so they feel free to put a little more personality in the performance itself, as well as improvisation, which gives a special touch to the whole story.