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Zian Chen Zian Chen is a curator and co-editor of Heichi Magazine . At times, he collaborates with others to develop alternative frameworks for artistic thinking and speculation. Wu Chi-Yu: Atlas of the Closed Worlds , 2021 Co-editing: Arrow Factory: The Last Five Years , 2020 Co-curating: Planet Marx Reading Club , 2019 Co-curating: Long March Project: The Deficit Faction , 2019 {review ; guidebook } Production Fever 2008, 2019 Co-curating: Long March Project: Building Code Violations III – Special Economic Zone, 2018 {review } Marysia Lewandowska, Rehearsing the Museum , 2018 With Liu Chuang: Revizionistinio akseleracionizmo link , 2018 Recent contributions: An open letter to these strange times Curtain Magazine Interview Instant Retrospectives: Freeze-Dried , Ready-To-Go The Club-Museum Ecosystem 2: Alvin Li’s Conceptronic Curating Hauntologies of Chinese Contemporary Art: Instant Retrospectives Redux

Events Lecture Series Participant Activities The educational program What Could/Should Curating Do is proud to announce lecture by Katalin Szekely Hosted by Kolarac Venue: Student square no 5 Kolarac Josic Pancic Hall Date: November 9th 2022 18:00 Prefigurative Practices – OFF-Biennale Budapest at documenta fifteen Prefigurative practices can be defined as attempts to enact, in the present, utopian or alternative social relations and institutional models, aspired to in the future. The modus operandi of OFF-Biennale Budapest—a grassroots, independent arts initiative, since 2013—has also been rooted in such practices: by acting as if it were an art institution organizing large-scale, international art events, it “performs” and “prefigures” an institution. During this process of “self-instituting”, OFF flexibly reflects on and recreates itself according to the challenges occurring in its local context of “illiberal democracy”. And while in terms of infrastructure, funding, and organization OFF reinvents itself from edition to edition, its curatorial practice is ongoing, with a strong focus on social ideas that experiment with forms of coexistence to build a society of mutual trust, generosity, responsibility, and care. Based on this (structural and curatorial) practice, OFF was invited to present its “cosmology” in the framework of documenta fifteen. As a member of the so-called “lumbung interlokal”—consisting of 14 different but like-minded organizations and initiatives from all around the world—OFF presented two exhibition projects and a publication that are not only representative of its activities, but are also in line with the general concept of documenta fifteen, the “lumbung”. documenta fifteen: OFF-Biennale Budapest, Sead Kazanxhiu, The Nest, 2012–2022, installation view, Fridericianum (façade), Kassel, May 11, 2022, photo: Nicolas Wefers About Speaker Katalin Székely holds an MA in Art History and German Literature from Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) Budapest, and was a curator at Ludwig Museum – Museum of Contemporary Art between 2008 and 2013. She is a PhD candidate in the Doctoral Program in Film, Media and Contemporary Culture at Eötvös Loránd University. Her field of research includes new media practices in the Neo-Avant-Garde in Hungary and Central and Eastern Europe, and institutional critique in the CEE region from the early 1960s to the present. Since 2014, Katalin Székely has been a member of the curatorial team of OFF-Biennale Budapest, the largest independent, grassroots arts initiative in Hungary. Since November 2015, as Creative Program Officer at Blinken OSA, she has curated and coordinated exhibitions and other public programs. The event is free and open to the public. The WCSCD educational program and series of public lectures have been initiated and organized by Biljana Ciric. Project Partners We thank following partners for supporting selected participants for 2022 program: Romanian Cultural Institute. Artcom platform , Kadist Foundation, William Demant Foundation For more information about the program, please refer to www.wcscd.com Project contacts: what.could.curating.do@gmail.com Follow us: FB: @whatcscdo Instagram: @whatcouldshouldcuratingdo < Mentors Educational Program How to Apply >

As you go… roads under your feet towards the new future As you go… roads under your feet, towards the new future is a long-term project and research inquiry that reflects on the Belt and Road Initiative and how it will alter the aesthetics and practices of everyday life in different local contexts. The project was conceived and initiated by Biljana Ciric in 2019 after conducting curatorial research in East Africa, Central Asia, and several Balkan countries where project is situated. The inquiry is structured as a long-term research project over a period of three years through research cells of organizations, institutions and individuals: What Could Should Curating Do (Belgrade), Moderna Galerija (Ljubljana), Rockbund Art Museum (Shanghai), Times Museum (Guang Zhou), ArtCom (Astana), Robel Temesgen and Sinkneh Eshetu (Addis Ababa), and The Public Library (Bor). Research cells vary from small-scale, single person organizations, to state and private museums; the differences produced by their various roles and voices, within their respective local contexts, being not only important when considering [the politics of] knowledge production, but also crucial to the premise of the project. The project does not attempt to pose yet another critical investigation into Chinese colonialism but rather, seeks to unpack the complexities these regions are dealing with, which are also leading to their current connections to the BRI through established commonalities. These include socialism, non-aligned legacies (and here, we are not only talking about the non-aligned movement, but also the relationships with China and other African and Asian countries during the twentieth century), neo-geopolitical settings, economical influences (especially that of the Chinese and Arab world within localities of similar patterns, that have even employed the same companies through different regions), being an agent of its own culture , and the recent COVID-19 pandemic . Being within the conditions of a pandemic seems almost even more relevant when thinking about the intimacy of cells (in times when we believe we must abide by social distancing and separation), and how we perform the process of transformation toward a possible co-immunity. Will we be able to decolonize our anthropological gaze from looking at the “other” from a distance, and turn the object of study into something we can engage with, in times when language differences spark fear, as discrimination makes us strangers among ourselves? The configuration of cells through long-term engagement seeks to emphasize different knowledge structures through collaboration, not only with artists but also architects, writers, anthropologists, and activists who are undertaking research within the project. This project stands as an important reminder that the BRI will cultivate connections that will be impossible to channel and control through the mainstream narratives of any state—but these gaps will enable more meaningful interactions that is process-oriented rather than outcome-driven. The first stage of the project began in February 2020, with the meeting of partner cells in Addis Ababa and the first public presentation. During this stage of the project, a number of local case studies have been initiated, and you can find more about the research project here: http://wcscd.com/index.php/projects/ The online journal of the project follows and shares works in progress of research, but also gives a platform for visibility in times of unrest (something many of the localities have been dealing with since the beginning of the pandemic): http://wcscd.com/index.php/wcscd-curatorial-inquiries/as-you-go-journal/ The research project On Cosmo-technics and New Geopolitics has been done in collaboration with Yuk Hui and researchers Sum Collective and Geocinema. Other contributors to the project include Hu Yun , Chen Liang , Sinkneh Eshetu Zeleke , Aziza Abdul Fetah , Sarah Bushra , Marija Glavas, Robel Temesgen , Jelica Jovanovic , Alex Ulko , Jasphy Zheng, Aigerim Kapar, Astrobus Ethiopia among others. The first stage of the project has been supported by the Foundation for Arts Initiatives, CURTAIN (Rockbund Art Museum), Austrian Cultural Forum, Curatorial Practice (Monash University Art, Design and Architecture), and the Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship. For more info pls contact: what.could.curating.do@gmail.com < Curatorial Inquiries Cells >

Events Lecture Series Participant Activities Kalokagathia: On the Possibility to Think Together the Aesthetical and Ethical in Curating | WCSCD 2020/21 Annual Lecture Series The curatorial program What Could/Should Curating Do 2020 is proud to continue in 2020 with public program through lecture series The second talk in the 2020 series is titled: Kalokagathia: On the Possibility to Think Together the Aesthetical and Ethical in Curating By Suzana Milevska Date: November 28, 2020 Time: 12:00 pm Belgrade/ 10:00 pm Melbourne/ 07:00 pm Shanghai/ 6:00 am New York Venue: zoom link ID: 985 237 3109 Live stream/Facebook link In the lecture “Kalokagathia: On the Possibility to Think Together the Aesthetical and Ethical in Curating” Suzana Milevska will focus on the ongoing debate about the reciprocal relations and tensions between the categories of beautiful and good, between the form and content, and between other perpetual and artificially distinctions and dichotomies that emerged in art theory during modernism. This lecture will address the questions of whether such dichotomies are and have ever been viable and how curating helps different art practices in overcoming the hierarchy between aesthetics and ethics over time. More specifically, this lecture explores the ways in which theories of curating brought back to mind the ancient Greek notion of kalokagathia, the intertwinement of aesthetics and ethics and with it, other ethical responsibilities, principles, and values that art forgot to address while giving privilege to its formal aspects. Milevska argues that curating helps activating the catalyst potential of art without having to compromise its formal aspects, as a kind of leverage that redresses the otherwise imbalanced relationship between aesthetics and ethics. Curating in her view lends out to art its innocent and aspirational belief in such a balance because the ethical concerns in art theory and art criticism have long been toned down while form was prioritized over content. To discuss such critical position towards the phenomenon of curatorial – and to distinguish it from the curating as a profession – becomes ever more urgent in the precarious and dire pandemic period when the tensions between aesthetics and ethics, care, and self-care dominate our professional and everyday lives. Portrait credit “photo Corn, Der Standard” About Speaker Dr. Suzana Milevska is a theorist and curator of visual art and culture. From 2016 to 2019 Milevska was Principal Investigator of the Horizon 2020 project TRACES, Polytechnic University Milan, and she curated its final exhibition Contentious Objects/Ashamed Subjects. She was Endowed Professor for Central and South Eastern European Art Histories at the Academy of Fine Art Vienna (2013 – 2015). She holds a PhD in visual cultures from Goldsmiths College London and in 2004 she was Fulbright Senior Research Scholar. She curated numerous international exhibitions such as; The Renaming Machine (2008-2011), Roma Protocol, Austrian Parliament, Vienna, and Call the Witness, BAK Utrecht (2011). She initiated the project Call the Witness–Roma Pavilion, Venice Biennale (2010-2011). In 2015 she curated the exhibition Inside Out: Not So White Cube, City Art Gallery, Ljubljana (with Alenka Gregorič). In 2012 she won ALICE Award for Political Curating and Igor Zabel Award for Culture and Theory. She published the books Gender Difference in the Balkans, 2010, The Renaming Machine: The Book, 2010, and On Productive Shame, Reconciliation, and Agency, SternbergPress, 2016. WHAT COULD/SHOULD CURATING DO? (WCSCD) WHAT COULD/SHOULD CURATING DO? (WCSCD) was initiated and funded in 2018 in Belgrade as an educational platform around notions of curatorial. From 2020 WCSCD started to initiate its own curatorial inquiries and projects that should unpack above -mentioned complexities keeping educational component as a core to the WCSCD. The WCSCD curatorial program and series of public lectures have been initiated and organized by Biljana Ciric. WCSCD 2020/2021 public program series has been done in collaboration with Division of Arts and Humanities, Duke Kunshan University and they co-stream all public lectures. Strategic media collaboration is done with Seecult and they will co-host all public lecture series. Project Partners Media Partner For more information about the program, please refer to www.wcscd.com Project contacts: what.could.curating.do@gmail.com Follow us: FB: @whatcscdo Instagram: @whatcouldshouldcuratingdo < Mentors Educational Program How to Apply >

Art and the Post-Pandemic Condition – an online curatorial program and support grant for art practitioners Open call: May 15th 2020 End of the open call June 15th 2020 Start of the program July 15th 2020 Practical information related to the program: Fee for the workshop is 450 euros Maximum number of applicants 20 WCSCD is launching a one-month online program from July 15th to August 15th reflecting on the post-pandemic condition that we are slowly entering into. This one month program hopes to provoke thinking, reflection and solidarity but also to serve as a collective annotation for our new reality. Through a series of workshops, the curatorial program will open discussions on how our work as artists and curators will be affected. What are some of the fundamental changes that we could address at this very moment to initiate that change? We are hoping to learn from Indigenous knowledge, small scale institutions, different species, notions of care and ways of staying connected from the past, the present and the future, finding gaps from where new relationships and encounters could emerge. While economic pressure forces nation-states to re-open we would like to pose urgent questions addressing the modes of working within the sphere of art that is deeply informed by neoliberal mechanisms. Amid fear of others, suffering and loss of lives, the pandemic has made us pause and to rethink our place in the world and our relationship to other human beings and species. We are hoping to initiate a series of workshops on how to facilitate different modes of working within the sphere of art from individual standpoints but also from a sense of belonging to a community. How can we organize ourselves and discuss different values publicly? How do we deal with the digitalized world imposed on us? Where is it still possible to find cracks for touch and proximity within a highly sanitized world? Many cultural producers are already familiar with different forms of insecurity and precarity. We will look at existing ways of working which are characterized by agility and resilience. A case in question is how small-scale visual arts organisations across the planet have developed methodologies which made it possible to keep running under the neoliberal economic regime. Another case is artists who have developed and maintained a practice without reverting to high production value. This is a good moment to explore unconventional sites and infrastructure that is in place and how they can be activated concerning art, from beaches and forests to libraries and schools. We see the post-pandemic condition as the beginning of a new struggle. It is a common struggle traversing the borders of nation-states, involving practitioners working with contemporary art having a variety of backgrounds. As online program practitioners from all geographies are welcome to apply. The mentors leading the program are Maria Lind, Natasa Petresin Bachelez and Biljana Ciric. Practical information related to the program: Fee for the workshop is 450 euros Maximum number of applicants 20 Application procedure Please send your bio or CV and a short reflection or statement related to the post-pandemic conditions from your perspective. The online sessions will be organized through Zoom and will require preparation, including the readings and different forms of exercises, both physical (what does that imply) and conceptual. There will be approximately three workshops led by the mentors per week and the duration of each session will be two hours. Besides fees for the mentors, part of the budget of the program will be distributed as a grant for three artists as a form of community support. Artists will be reached through the open call while selection panel will consist of program participants and mentors for grant Artists based in any former Yugoslav country are eligible to apply Support fund for artists is 500 euros. what.could.curating.do@gmail.com

< Back Boarding & Europe 20 Apr 2020 Siniša Ilić Belgrade-based artist Siniša Ilić returned to Serbia the day the State announced a State of Emergency following a rise in the number of local coronavirus cases. From this day, 15 March 2020, Ilic has been required to remain quarantined within his house for a period of one month. The isolation he has experienced is documented through a series of drawings developed as a daily practice, reflecting on the pandemic that connects and divides us. “After sharing his new drawings with me I have invited Sinisa to contribute to this journal with series of drawings for the duration of his quarantine. They will be published in a few phases in the upcoming weeks.” Biljana Ciric 5 April 2020 BOARDING Drawings “Boarding” and “Europe 1” deal with the topics of circulation and its sudden change; controlled and shaped by fear, uniformed bodies, States, the virus, care for our health and the health of others. Drawings “Social distancing” and “Europe 2” question new patterns of social choreographies and fears, including our physical presence in the public space or its absence from consuming habits and rituals. On this occasion “Boarding” is presented as an album of single images, simulating individual panic and fear, and “Europe 1 and 2” and “Social distancing” are exhibited through several photographs captured by smartphone within the home studio. The series of drawings were created using pencils and ink pen in March and April 2020 and are of similar dimensions approx. 21 × 29 cm. EUROPE 1 Drawings “Boarding” and “Europe 1” deal with the topics of circulation and its sudden change; controlled and shaped by fear, uniformed bodies, States, the virus, care for our health and the health of others. Drawings “Social distancing” and “Europe 2” question new patterns of social choreographies and fears, including our physical presence in the public space or its absence from consuming habits and rituals. On this occasion “Boarding” is presented as an album of single images, simulating individual panic and fear, and “Europe 1 and 2” and “Social distancing” are exhibited through several photographs captured by smartphone within the home studio. The series of drawings were created using pencils and ink pen in March and April 2020 and are of similar dimensions approx. 21 × 29 cm. EUROPE 2 Drawings “Boarding” and “Europe 1” deal with the topics of circulation and its sudden change; controlled and shaped by fear, uniformed bodies, States, the virus, care for our health and the health of others. Drawings “Social distancing” and “Europe 2” question new patterns of social choreographies and fears, including our physical presence in the public space or its absence from consuming habits and rituals. On this occasion “Boarding” is presented as an album of single images, simulating individual panic and fear, and “Europe 1 and 2” and “Social distancing” are exhibited through several photographs captured by smartphone within the home studio. The series of drawings were created using pencils and ink pen in March and April 2020 and are of similar dimensions approx. 21 × 29 cm. Siniša Ilić is a visual artist working also in the field of performance art. His work includes drawing, painting, installation, video and artist books. Previous Next

Events Lecture Series Participant Activities WCSCD 2025/2026 educational program lecture series Lecture by Nina Möntmann Decentring the Museum. Contemporary Art Institutions and Colonial Legacies Time September 10th , 2025, 19:00 Venue: SKUP Novi Sad Nina Montmann lecture is taking point of departure of her recently published book Decentering the Museum: Contemporary Art Institutions and Colonial legacy. Montmann in the book acknowledges transition processes towards decolonization, de-elitiziation, giving emphasis on importance of moving away from collection, exhibition policies that are based on European colonial legacy of institutional rituals that will be also addressed at the lecture. To counter their dwindling relevance in a post-migrant society more and more modern and contemporary art museums are seeking approaches to decenter their collections, policies and infrastructures. In doing so, they can benefit from engaging with the discourses triggered by the restitution processes of the anthropological museum as well as the working methods of small art spaces. In this talk I will introduce the concept and practice of decentring as it can be applied to the museum. I will have a look at the example of the MASP/Museu de Arte São Paulo and the HKW in Berlin and focus on a series of exhibitions and projects that performed the interweaving of diverse colonial histories with imperial modernity that the art historian Ruth Iskin calls for. Nina Montmann is mentor of WCSCD educational program 2025/2026 and she the lecture is organized as part of educational program public encounters in collaboration with SKUP and Sok Cooperative Lecture will be in English Nina Möntmann is Professor of Art Theory at the University of Cologne, curator and writer as well as Principal Investigator at the Global South Study Center (GSSC) at the University of Cologne. Before she has been Professor of Art Theory and the History of Ideas at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm and curator at NIFCA, the Nordic Institute for Contemporary Art in Helsinki. Curated projects include Naeem Mohaiemen: Langer Tag , Temporary Gallery, Cologne, 2023; Måns Wrange: Magic Bureaucracy , Tensta konsthall in Stockholm 2017; Fluidity , Kunstverein in Hamburg 2016; Harun Farocki A New Product (Deichtorhallen Hamburg, 2012); If we can't get it together. Artists rethinking the (mal)functions of community (The Power Plant, Toronto, 2008); The Jerusalem Show: Jerusalem Syndrome (together with Jack Persekian), 2009, Parallel Economies in India , (Frankfurter Kunstverein, 2006) and the Armenian Pavillion for the 52nd Venice Biennial. She participated in the long-term Israeli/Palestinian art and research project Liminal Spaces , and in 2010 was a research fellow at the Museo de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid. She organized a number of symposia, such as Beyond Cynicism: Political Forms of Opposition, Protest and Provocation in Art , 2012, and New Communities , 2008 (both at Moderna Museet in Stockholm), We, Ourselves, and Us at the Power Plant in Toronto, 2009, and ReForming India - Artistic Collectives Bend International Art Practices at the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at the New School in New York, 2007. < Mentors Educational Program How to Apply >

Nikita Yingqian Cai < Back Manila shawl and “gold mountain uncles” and Protein demand and chicken farm blockchain Nikita Yingqian Cai Manila shawl and “gold mountain uncles” The Manila shawl was originally from Canton. The silk produced in Shunde – an affluent region since the Ming Dynasty due to its adjacency to water, abundance of agricultural land, and its robust mulberry and sericulture industry – was woven into the shawls hand-made by local embroidery artisans. They adapted designs principally of lotus flowers and dragons to depict flora that resonated better with an international audience, such as roses and carnations. Spanish and Latin American women became enamored with the intricate floral designs, while the shawl’s signature tassels, originating from Native American garments, contributed to the vibrancy of the flamenco dancer’s mellifluous performances. This was the time when Spain dominated the maritime trade route. A range of colonial luxuries including silk products, ceramics, and tea leaves would be loaded in Canton and transported via Manila and Acapulco before arriving in the southern port of Seville in Spain—the same route taken by the explorer Magellan. It would, however, go on to lose its imperial advantages within Asia to the monopoly of [the] East Indian Companies in the 19th century. Travelling in the opposite direction, destined for the Philippines, were Spanish galleons transporting heavy loads of Mexican bullion from South America and devoted Catholic missionaries from Europe. The missionaries arriving early in Luzon had known for a long time that “Catholicizing” the traders ( sangley ) from the southern regions of Imperial China — particularly those from Guangdong, Fujian, and Taiwan — and fostering them as local intermediaries, would aid the Spanish colonial expansion in the area. To this day, there are still some Catholic relics in the region of Sze Yap . The region would later provide a large number of young and cheap laborers for the coolie trade that followed the opium wars. Coolies were deceived into signing up for jobs that had them setting sail from Macau, and drifting for months, before arriving in Peru, Cuba, or the British-controlled Caribbean to earn a pittance shoveling bird droppings, farming sugarcane, or digging the Panama Canal. Some would later travel to the west coast of North America where they provided labor for mines, the construction of transcontinental railways, and the California gold rush. Those who struck rich by panning for gold were referred to as “gold mountain uncles” upon their return home. Right after the peak of the coolie trade, the US signed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, and the racist rhetoric it legitimized would later be a contributing factor in the opening of the notorious immigration station on Angel Island (1910 – 1940). Protein demand and chicken farm blockchain A YouTube video “How to quickly destroy the world’s forests?” produced by PaperClip and WWF sparked accusations from Chinese internet commentators in early 2020 for its direct linking of China’s middle class growing protein demand with deforestation in Brazil. Some of the commentators claimed the “right to development” both for the Brazilians who wanted to do business with China and for the Chinese who could finally afford to consume more meat. It is a third-world developmentalist ghost in the shell of nationalism, and the current trade route of meat and soy between China and Brazil resonates with the long history of mercantile modernity. China’s food security based on pork supply and the Belt and Road Initiative are also connected to Brazil’s soybean chain and the ongoing construction of highway BR-163 in the state of Mato Grosso, which has a fundamental role in commerce, tourism, and the transport logistics of the agribusiness. However, the growing Chinese demand for protein does not have much to do with the CCP and state-owned enterprises as most western media would have depicted. On the contrary, it masks a socio-economic divide which is very much like what is happening around the world. Some people like beef, some people like pork, while some can afford neither but will surely want more. Some might prefer organic food or no meat because they live a cosmopolitan life and are more alert to the surrounding ecological crisis. In some poor villages of hinterland China, one would still have hard time finding beef dishes in home-run restaurants because farmers won’t kill cows for food – they raise the animal for agricultural labor. There are still plenty of small farm holders in rural areas of China, and when compared to industrial farming, have different ways of bonding with their lands and animals. Cows for them are like horses to cowboys (though less romantic). In recent years, some farmers have started raising high-tech chicken in their farms, in which chicken wear leg bands to track their movements as Fitbits for tech start-ups to record the data on a blockchain. That is how technology is transforming the lives of the human and nonhuman – neither the farmers nor the animals have any free choice when confronted by global capitalism. What we should continue to bear in mind is who sustains the flourishing of the world. Nikita Yingqian Cai lives and works in Guangzhou, where she is currently Associate Director and Chief Curator at Guangdong Times Museum. Previous Next

Hu Yun < Back “Topola” (Cottonwood trees) and “Breza” (birch trees) and Chinese wok Hu Yun Key words from Bor:Provided by The Hunter and Miss K (two friends from Bor who guided me during my first visit to Bor) http://old.wcscd.com/index.php/wcscd-curatorial-inquiries/as-you-go-journal/bor/ Collected by Hu Yun Disappearing: “Topola” (Cottonwood trees) A towering native, a cottonwood tree soars and spreads, growing more than 30m tall and almost as wide. It’s a cherished shade tree, often planted in parks. In the wild, cottonwood grows along rivers, ponds and other bodies of water. It also thrives in floodplains and dry riverbeds, where infrequent rains transform dry land into waterways. Historically, cottonwood earned its place as a landscape tree because it grows rapidly, cumulatively up to 1.5m a year. It’s also a favorite for shade, with the large spread helping to cast cooling shade over homes and streets. There’s a cottonwood for nearly any region, with different hardy types in Zones 2 through 9. (Brandt, Wilhelm; Gürke, M.; Köhler, F. E.; Pabst, G.; Schellenberg, G.; Vogtherr, Max., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons, Köhler’s Medizinal-Pflanzen in naturgetreuen Abbildungen mit kurz erläuterndem Texte : Gera-Untermhaus :Fr. Eugen Köhler,[1883-1914]. www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/303674 ) “Breza” (birch trees) Birch trees belong to the genus Betula and are classified as part of the Betulaceae family of plants. They are typically small to medium-sized trees and shrubs found in temperate zones in the Northern Hemisphere. Some varieties grow in shrubby clusters. Others are trees that clump with multiple trunks. And others grow as classic single-trunk trees. Most birches are characterized by distinctive bark with papery plates; the appearance of the bark often is the feature that gives the species its common names. Birches often form even-aged stands on light, well-drained, particularly acidic soils. They are regarded as pioneer species, rapidly colonizing open ground especially in secondary successional sequences following a disturbance or fire. Mycorrhizal fungi, including sheathing (ecto) mycorrhizas, are found in some cases to be beneficial to tree growth. A large number of lepidopteran insects feed on birch foliage. (Betula pendula Roth, syn. Betula verrucosa Ehrh. Original book source: Prof. Dr. Otto Wilhelm Thomé Flora von Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz 1885, Gera, Germany. Source: www.biolib.de ) Appearing: Chinese wok Being the first Chinese person to open a Chinese restaurant in Bor, Chef Qiu’s wok is one of his everyday’s essentials. Image courtesy Chef Qiu, Bor, Serbia Hu Yun is an artist currently based in Melbourne. Previous Next