FREE ENTRY / International Sculpture Symposium – Terra

The International Symposium of Large-Scale Terracotta Sculpture – Terra was founded in 1982 by MA sculptor Slobodan Kojić. Since then, it has been held every year from July 1 to 31, in Kikinda, within the premises of a former roof tile factory – an industrial-style building that was built in 1895.

Every year, five to eight artists from Serbia and abroad participate in the Terra Symposium. When it comes to large-scale terracotta sculpture and contemporary art, the Terra symposium is unique in the world.

During the four decades of its existence, Terra strived to “introduce” its participants to a specific process of creation that cannot be achieved in everyday art-studio practice: here, sculptors are offered the possibility of a one-of-a-kind artistic professional development and that is why the Kikinda gathering of sculptors is defined as – a Symposium.

Over the course of all these years, the sculptors attending the Kikinda Symposium expressed their reactions to and reflections on social events in an authentic sculptural way, and no thematic or conceptual demands were ever placed before the participants of Terra.

Reacting to all these events, working diligently at the International Sculpture Symposium – Terra in Kikinda, the sculptors penetrated the spirit of the time with their forms: in the nineteen-eighties, they commented on the dichotomy that was prevalent at the time: they protested against the state of the world by sculpting expressive forms, but at the same time and with the same gesturality, they ecstatically celebrated life. During the fatal 1990s, they used construction to oppose the general destruction that reigned in former Yugoslavia at the time, and they imposed geometry and formal simplicity, enriched by the principles of order, harmony and accord – as possible models for creating a better society.…