DCK Incel is a social-cultural center on the outskirts of Banja Luka’s abandoned and decaying industrial park, which goes by the same name. Within one of the many huge, concrete Yugoslav-era factories, DKC Incel creates a homey atmosphere in its stark and high-ceilinged industrial space. It gathers the city’s alternative scene, sometimes overnight as a band plays or DJs throw a party, sometimes during the day for a workshop, screening, or book promotion.
The space is thus reminiscent of the cultural spaces that, worldwide, use industrial zones to enrich the daily and nightly life of their cities. Incel, like most of those gathering points, goes beyond being just a club; it’s a cultural center that improves its community by elevating pro-social ideals and actions. As Dalibor, an ex-boxer who’s been working the doors of Incel since it opened in 2013, said, “Incel isn’t for rednecks and nationalists.”
The same could be said for any such space, anywhere in the world, but Incel is different because of the history it’s embedded within. The organization that runs it, the Association of Independent Creators and Activists “Geto,” was founded in 1999, taking on the mission of fighting against the isolation of young, creative people in Banja Luka.
As we walked through the space, Vesna Malešević, the Secretary of Geto, told me about that time and the many young, creative people who had just returned from a war they were conscripted into. This generation came to be known as the “student brigade,” so-called because the army of RS forcefully dragged them from the student benches. After the war, most did not continue their studies—but they did start making music, creating art. What they lacked was anywhere that would welcome different ideas, different music, and different art than what the unhealthy, turbo-mainstream was promoting. This Banja Lukan generation felt pushed into a ghetto from which they could not go, to which no one could come.
And so, flying in the face of the politics of the time, a group of these veterans formed their association and ironically called it Geto. They set up the associations’ original space, called it PKB Geto, and local bands like Revolt, Betty Blue and Krec started to play in their own voice.
Their first confrontation with conservative society came as a result of their collaboration with their peers from ‘the other side of the line;’ first from Mostar (through working with Abrašević and Vuneny, a band), then artists and bands from Sarajevo. Predictably, party players did not like this overthrow of the established nationalist pattern (nor cultural exchange in principle), and they tried to demotivate and discourage them in various ways. Nonetheless, touring acts from other countries and parts of Bosnia continue to pass through DKC Incel’s stage, including Darko Rundek, Billy Andol, Artan Lili, Shizomantra, Smoke Mardeljano, and, at this year’s BL ART festival, Muha.
In 2012, they clashed with the government again as they organized mass protests in Picin Park, responding to the sale of one of the city’s last green areas to private developers. Despite three months of guerrilla actions aimed at the free use of public spaces and the promotion of anti-fascist thought—such as lectures, gigs, guerrilla theater in the park—, the city authorities did not listen. Yet, by protesting over a civic issue using cultural means, Geto united its anti-fascist cultural activities with criticism of the economic results of nationalistic governance.
To return to the industrial zone in which we started, the Geto team opened DKC Incel in 2013 with the intention of continuing to provide opportunities for alternative youth to appear before the public and get to know each other through creativity. While the factories used to employ 9,000, now, by the partially stolen railroad, a much smaller group of young people gather in their warehouse. Keeping at least a slice of their city away from the profiteers who unconscionably build the walls of capitalism.
We asked a girl in her early twenties, who was sitting with her company on discarded tires in the apocalyptic surroundings, sporting interesting hair, “What makes DKC Incel so different?” She said that, apart from whatever was happening, there was a general feeling of freedom and a relaxed atmosphere, the sense that you can dress and behave however you like. By remaining open to anyone from anywhere, of any gender, sexual identity, every race and ethnicity for so long, Geto has resisted manipulation by the nationalist parties in power. We hope they continue to do so for many more years.
(Long live DKC Incel!
Individuals of all countries, unite!)