Bean Day is a local event that is widely recognized in the Region Dolni Polog, and the central activities always take place in the village of Tearce. This event was initiated 11 years ago in joint cooperation of the Center for Contemporary Arts Skopje and the Center for Education and Development of Tearce and it is regularly organized every autumn ever since.
This year, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Bean Day event in the traditional format with activities that provide mass attendance and citizen participation, could not be organized. Wishing to maintain continuity of the event, the Center for Contemporary Arts together with the Center for Education and Development from the village of Tearce made a spatial sculptural intervention in the form of a bean and thus marked the 11th edition of Bean Day.
The work of the sculptor Ljubiša Kamenjarov who visually explicitly connects the local context of the connection between agriculture and bean production and the love for this agricultural culture which is one of the most important for local farmers. That is why the bean wrapped in heart-shaped leaves beautifully shows the connection of the farmers from this region with their commitment to the production of Tetovo beans.
This type of spatial interventions not only ennoble and beautify the public space but also significantly contribute to preserving the authentic local cultural context and the common values of the population from different ethnic and religious backgrounds in the village of Tearce and the surrounding area. At the same time, this type of intervention promotes contemporary culture and practices as something that is close and recognized by communities, breaking down stereotypes about the elitism of contemporary art and their distance from “ordinary” people.
The initiative is supported by the Foundation Open Society – Macedonia.
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9 December 2020