During the eighties, the photographic scene in Yugoslavia was highly supported through the Photo Alliance of Yugoslavia, the state institution who educated a lot of young photographers through the network of photo clubs. Short-term courses were unable to provide the quality of knowledge and the creative space for young photographers to express themselves. After the breakdown of those state institutions and the new cultural policy orientation, a huge gap appeared among a lot of interested young people who found no guidance or ways of getting into the field of photography.

In 1998, the Kaleidoscope photographic workshop was established within the Fund for an Open Society programs to present the new model of photographic education, dedicated to the sensibility of the individual.

Eleven participants of the first year of Kaleidoscope photographic workshop, held in 1998, have chosen independently their own themes and worked on them for nine months. Monthly gatherings and individual work with each participant resulted with a group show of 55 photographs that gained a lot of attention and publicity in town. And in many different ways, that town was the main topic of the young photographers, their views and the feelings towards the different issues that occupy the city and themselves within it.

This year, Kaleidoscope photographic workshop runs on two levels, trying to overcome all the difficulties of today's moment of isolation of the country , continuing with its educational model. It is organized in a way to cover the broader range of participants in terms of age and the number. As it is trying to work with already orientated teenagers allowing them to build their own sensibility and affinity, it is trying to promote last year's participants into real photographic personalities through their own independent projects and exhibitions. A series of lectures will be held by prominent domestic and foreign photographers and visual artists which use photography as means of expression in their work along with short week workshops on different subjects of the same subject.

The interest provoked by last year's Kaleidoscope workshop goes well beyond Belgrade itself. We consider including trainees from other Yugoslav towns with Open Clubs in workshops most significant, since it will enlarge the Yugoslav photographic network and promote this model of photographic education.

Vesna Pavlovic, Project's Coordinator