{"id":12323,"date":"2026-08-13T14:49:45","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T12:49:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/evropskakuca.rs\/izvestaj\/jerma-art-festival-selo-sa-petnaest-stanovnika-festival-za-stotine-gostiju\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T15:00:26","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T13:00:26","slug":"jerma-art-festival-selo-sa-petnaest-stanovnika-festival-za-stotine-gostiju","status":"publish","type":"izvestaj","link":"https:\/\/evropskakuca.rs\/en\/izvestaj\/jerma-art-festival-selo-sa-petnaest-stanovnika-festival-za-stotine-gostiju\/","title":{"rendered":"Jerma Art Festival: A Village of Fifteen Residents, a Festival for Hundreds of Guests"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the first weekend of August, the canyon of the Jerma River below the Pirot village of Vlasi once again became the stage for the Jerma Art Festival<\/a><\/strong>, held for the third time. A village with just fifteen permanent residents welcomed several hundred visitors from Serbia and Bulgaria, offering music, film screenings, and artistic and environmental workshops.<\/p>\n

The festival is organised by the Jerma Citizens\u2019 Association<\/a>, made up mostly of young people originally from the village of Vlasi. For one of them, Sr\u0111an Man\u010dev<\/strong>, the festival was not born out of a programme idea, but out of a deep attachment to the place.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe village is much more lively in summer than in winter, but we\u2019ve never seen it this full of people before,\u201d<\/em> said Man\u010dev.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The association\u2019s journey from an informal group to an organisation now running a three-day international festival was supported by the EU Resource Centre<\/strong><\/a> for civil society in Serbia, implemented by the Belgrade Open School and its partners with the support of the Delegation of the European Union to Serbia. With this support, the association developed its website and visual identity and received an action grant to clean up a waste dump along the Jerma River, a particularly sensitive task in a protected area.<\/p>\n

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\u201cJerma is a good-practice example of how a local initiative can grow into a civil society organisation, become sustainable and make a significant impact on the local community,\u201d<\/em> says Milivoje Jovanovi\u0107<\/strong> from the EU Resource Centre.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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\u201cThere used to be an accumulation of plastic bottles under this bridge that had built up over twenty years,\u201d<\/em> Man\u010dev recalls. \u201cLast year, we organised a clean-up campaign, and a year later there isn\u2019t a single one left. We love this place and we don\u2019t want to pollute it.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Environmental protection at Jerma is not just a message, but a daily practice: recycled cups, organised waste disposal and volunteer clean-up campaigns. The impact extends beyond the festival itself, as Jerma has also helped boost tourism in the area: the number of foreign visitors is growing, while local residents are developing accommodation options of their own.<\/p>\n

How did an EU cultural programme bring writers to a village of fifteen houses?<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n

At the festival, the Creative Europe Desk Serbia<\/a> presented the Call for the Circulation of European Literary Works, this year\u2019s edition focusing on \u201cGreen Literature\u201d<\/strong>. Through the initiative, ten titles addressing environmental issues have been translated and published, with part of the print run distributed to festival visitors.<\/p>\n

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\u201cOrganisations from Serbia are very successful participants in the Creative Europe programme, but most projects are concentrated in Belgrade and Novi Sad,\u201d<\/em> explains Bojan Milosavljevi\u0107<\/strong> from the Creative Europe Desk.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

He says the programme\u2019s presence at Jerma serves two purposes: promoting the green agenda as one of the programme\u2019s priorities and decentralising culture by building the capacity of smaller communities for cultural exchange. For several years now, Serbia has been the most successful country in this call, with the highest number of approved projects.<\/p>\n

One of the festival visitors connected the book she received, Memory of Water<\/em>, with the place where she was standing.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe are standing next to a river that connects Serbia and Bulgaria, but also connects all of us through one common theme: water. Without water, there is no life,\u201d<\/em> she noted.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

As a non-profit event, the Jerma Art Festival brings together art, nature and community, gathering artists, researchers, activists and local residents to explore sustainability, respect for nature and creative ways of living in harmony with the world around us. The festival features art, performances, music, workshops, lectures and environmental projects. All activities aim to bring people together and encourage creativity, collaboration, solidarity and respect for nature.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prvog avgustovskog vikenda, kanjon reke Jerme ispod pirotskog sela Vlasi, tre\u0107i put je postao pozornica Jerma Art Festivala.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":12321,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-12323","izvestaj","type-izvestaj","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":{"Grad":"Ni\u0161","Vreme":"20260813","vreme_zavrsetka":"20260813","test_ripiter":null,"Kategorija":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/evropskakuca.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/izvestaj\/12323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/evropskakuca.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/izvestaj"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/evropskakuca.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/izvestaj"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/evropskakuca.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/evropskakuca.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/izvestaj\/12323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12327,"href":"https:\/\/evropskakuca.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/izvestaj\/12323\/revisions\/12327"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/evropskakuca.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/evropskakuca.rs\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}