Malý Berlin is an independent cultural center in Trnava (Slovakia), an industrial and university town near Bratislava. The organization is actively involved in developing international cooperation in the Central and Eastern European region. Since 2022, it has also taken an important role in helping Ukrainian emigrants, especially artists who were forced to leave Ukraine for the countries of the European Union. More than 300 events take places in the two halls of the cultural center every year.
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Malý Berlín also operates an exhibition space, an international residency program and carries out educational and capacity-building programs for people working in the arts and culture. It organizes two large scale events – literary festival Ypsalon and digital culture festival YouTopia.
Malý Berlín is member of Trans Europe Halles, european network of cultural and creative centers.

The original building and the surrounding area of ​​the old but still functioning railway station Zhilina - Zarechie, surrounded by the Zhilina roundabout, has since 2003 been a combination of an independent cultural space, an art laboratory and a collective of activists. On the unmarked map of the present, the space wants to be a transitional node where critical thinking, creativity, and education take place.

The year-round and daily program of the Station consists of festivals ( Fest Anča ,Kiosk festival, Mountains and the city of Žilina ,Žilina Literary Festival , ...), theater and dance performances, concerts, film screenings, lectures, exhibitions, workshops, courses and workshops, artists' residencies , co-production of art projects, hosting and broadcasting of foreign volunteers, events for children and for schools, the bustle ofsmall markets and community events (on free dates, it is possible to rent the services and equipment of the Station.)

The cultural and creative centre, operated by the Nadácia Cvernovka foundation, is located in the area of the former chemical industry at Račianská 78 in Bratislava. In addition to multifunctional spaces, an outdoor terrace, a stage, a community garden, public park, children’s playground and a public library, there are 132 art and creative studios.

This area provides a wide range of cultural and educational programs in the fields of music, fine arts, literature, film, theater and multi-genre activities. There is also a houses bar (Skrytý bar), bistro (Dvanásť Duší) and the café (Giraffe Bakery) with seating indoors or on the terrace in the park. The ground floor houses retail, where there are original graphics, toys, designer jewelry, and slow fashion clothing.

The values of the space are freedom, responsibility, openness, cooperation, creativity, diversity, civic awareness, experimentalism and self-realization. The main idea of the space is creating a space for dialogue between culture, art, ecology, science and citizenship.

The Július Koller Society is a non-profit association established 2008 in Bratislava. The purpose and objectives of the association is to promote the works, artistic and cultural achievements of Július Koller as well as to enhance exchanges in contemporary arts and strengthen local and international cultural dialogue. In 2009, the association received a donation from Květoslava Fulierová licensing rights for the world-wide reproduction of Július Koller’s works, along with the extensive archive of the artist, which the association gradually researched and publicized. Opposed to a reduction of arts and culture to their economic, populist or merely spectacular aspects, one main focus of the JKS is to research and highlight the specific conditions and histories of anti-canonical, peripheral and hitherto marginalized artistic practices.

Dance Residency Center is a former gym that contains the basic facilities and equipment necessary for dance and movement. It has served as a non-commercial, residential space for professional dance makers since 2016 in the preparation phase of works and for their day to day training. It is integrated into the premises of Nová Cvernovka, a prominent cultural hub (with ateliers and theatre/concert space) in Bratislava, but operates independently. Since 2018, PlaST has been coordinating its functioning, residency activities, international cooperation, research, and at the same time striving to improve its facilities as well as providing educational programmes aimed at the wider public. Despite its makeshift nature (a need to undergo larger renovation works), Telocvičňa has quickly become an important hub in Slovakia and the wider region for dozens of dance and performance artists. It strives to support established artists as well as the younger generation, and underlines the importance of intergenerational cooperation. Currently it contributes to the strengthening of the dance community, it is an important continuity protecter in the time of pandemics as well as financial crisis.

A tool for strengthening the links between the different actors, but it is also a space for dance educational activities for the wider public. In 2021, thanks to the support of the Slovak Arts Council and the support of the Cultural Fund of City of Bratislava as well as the efforts of the dance artists themselves, the adjacent space underwent a basic renovation, giving the space the facilities for an office, 2 storage rooms, a shower room, and a kitchen/brainstorming area. It is collaborating with the Bratislava self-governing region on a project aiming to bring contemporary dance to elementary and high school students and seniors in the Bratislava region. Since 2021, it has been running a Residency programme, which includes supporting progressive work by local and international teams, and is also running a regional research project with partners from Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic, focusing on the link between art and science in the climate change issue Nature of Us (more at www.natureofus.art).

tranzit is a unique network of civic associations working independently in the field of contemporary art in Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania and across the borders of a wider Europe. Its main goal is to support and articulate emancipatory practices, establish connections between culture and society by moving across geographies, generations, and political realms.

For more than a decade, tranzit has been a critical (and self-critical) platform, which challenged established canons of post-war European (art) histories. It has promoted contemporary art practices, theory and social discourses with an aim to contribute to present-day mobilizations of solidarity and community-building in a Europe of narrowing nationalism, cultural essentialism, growing economic egoism, and social as well as gender inequality.

Each tranzit works under its own conditions in a variety of local cultural and social contexts, using different formats and methods to contextualize, generate or host theoretical, artistic and activist debates around today’s urgencies. Activities range from exhibitions, thematic projects, seminars, publications based on long-term research and participatory interventions into the public discourse.

We believe in the liberty of the contemporary art institution to lead a risky, unframed, poetical and political research; in experiments; in transgressive, resistant, localized and situated concepts of cultural practices, in experimental forms of education and research; and in impure theory.

ERSTE Foundation is the main part of tranzit.tranzit.sk’s earlier activity (2002 – 2013) concentrated mostly on re-evaluating recent Central Eastern European art histories, and granting visibility to local and regional contemporary art practices within an international context. Alongside this orientation, an explicit focus on the social function of art and on current topics has been developed since 2014. Examples include representation of minorities, collective practices, urban ecologies, alternative education, conditions of artistic production. This program manifests itself in research-based exhibitions, lectures, discussions, reading groups, workshops and publications, which besides artists, art theorists and curators, involve producers from other cultural fields, as well as scientists and activists. By crossing disciplines and enabling collective knowledge production and sharing, it aims to contribute to the self-empowerment of individuals and groups of people.

tranzit.sk commits itself to be a responsive institution, to identify the needs of its immediate artistic and social environment, and react to them by following its basic principles – responsibility, critical thinking, experimentation, hospitality and collaboration.

Recently tranzit.sk has embarked upon longer-term projects like Nadikhuno muzeumos (Invisible Museum), which deals with the institutional representation of Romani culture, or Urban Imagination Seminar, an interdisciplinary co-learning format aimed at envisioning a sustainable and just future for cities and their inhabitants, both human and non-human alike. In the years to come, tranzit.sk wishes to continue experimenting with forms of knowledge production and the generation of experience, strengthen its local and international network and mediate between activities coming from various fields with a potential for change.

Šopa Gallery, founded in 2015 by the civic association BIIIF, is an independent chamber space focused on the presentation of contemporary visual art in Košice. It presents young and middle generation artists of the Central European scene with a focus on current social issues and trends in fine arts. The selection of individual authors is subject to an effort for an open-minded view of the contemporary art world and thus offer space for experimental, interdisciplinary or site-specific projects. Gallery shares its space with studios of residency artists within the K.A.I.R. Košice Artist in Residence project and cooperates with other organizations, art theorists and curators from Slovakia and abroad. In addition to presentation activities, through focused guided tours, “artist talks”, lectures and workshops, it focuses on the development and education of audiences in the field of contemporary visual art. The gallery team bases its annual dramaturgy on international collaborations with curators, art theorists, and artists. One of the aims is to create a network with similar spaces at home and abroad, to bring the most exciting contemporary art projects, but also with an eye on the thematic focus of the individual exhibitions. The gallery's management believes in the power of art and its ability to convey important cultural, social, and environmental themes through its language to the public. We are always open to new ideas and collaboration in different ways - a curatorial exhibition in our gallery space or an exchange of shows/projects; we are also interested in educational accompanying programs that may consist of international guests - theoreticians, artists, or even scientists.Artists, curators, and anyone from the field, and those who overlap the other scientific disciplines are welcome to contact us with an idea. Our primary focus is on the themes we have been dealing with for extended periods, topics of global crisis - environmental, political, social. There is a war in Ukraine, women struggle in Iran, etc. There is so much violence, fear of the unknown, and otherness. We can see that the extreme right wings have come to power in many European countries. What about our values, solidarity (not only with humans), care, co-existence and mental health? We can explore many shades and look to the future, build different scenarios, etc. 

VUNU is a cultural organization devoted to young contemporary art. The mission of the organization is to provide a platform for the presentation of the contemporary Slovak or foreign artists, whether in the gallery or during the other events organized by the VUNU. VUNU Gallery is supported using public funding by Slovak Arts Council. Partners: K13 — Košice Cultural Centres, CIKE — Creative Industry Košice, SHOWMEDIA, City of Košice

Our commitment is not only to work with visual art, but also to highlight relevant contemporary issues such as the climate crisis, social inequality, segregation and intolerance. We have set ourselves the objective of becoming an inclusive institution that reflects the world in which we live.We build on the hard work of our predecessors with the energy of a new generation of curators, gallery educators, and professional staff thinking about art as a catalyst for present and future ideas. Our exhibition projects are diverse and range from old to contemporary art. Outside of exhibitions, the gallery also prepares a rich programme for the professional and general public from the youngest visitors to the elderly. We strive to bring quality solutions and new approaches, working in cooperation with renowned architects, artists and scientists.

As an organization and facility, the Záhrada Cultural Centre (Záhrada) was preceded by the Ivan Palúch Theatre, where we all met and became enthusiastic about one idea introduced by Viera Dubačová and a few other cultural enthusiasts, who later teamed up with us. We began to run this space as an open platform for art and the home stage of Theatre from the Passage. In October 2010, we relocated from the former pancake house in the Arcade Passage to our present location in the courtyard of the Beniczký Passage. In November 2010, we hosted the first concert of the DVA Czech group in the then abandoned building that housed our cultural center. Years of renovation, organizing small and modest events followed. The initial youthful enthusiasm and idealism made us believe that quite soon, we would be able to find sponsors, patrons, and otherwise enlightened people and complete the basic renovation within a year. It's been ten years, and only now are we slowly becoming economically sustainable, with the community center building largely renovated. We renovated on our own with the support of our families, friends, people from the Pasáž Theatre, and local volunteers. We replaced the roof, built a sewage system, installed electricity, cleaned up a building with several tons of garbage, rehabilitated the garden park, and gradually transformed the building into a facility for the arts.

Thanks to Norway Grants, we installed heating, insulated the building, built sanitary facilities, and carried out other necessary interventions. We managed to create a permanent working team and professionalize it into the current form. The physical appearance of the Záhrada building is different every year, as we revamp it according to financial possibilities.The Záhrada Cultural Centre is currently a fully established organization in Slovakia and abroad. In addition to creative and artistic activities, the Záhrada is an island of positive deviance and a platform for many human rights events and civic activism. So far, more than 50 artistic productions (theater, dance, performance art) have been created in the Záhrada. It is also the home stage of Theatre from the Passage – a municipal theater established in 1995 as the only professional community theater in Slovakia working with people with special needs. The Záhrada is also home to the SKOK! Civic Association, founded by Jaro Viňarský, which serves as an information and residential center for contemporary dance and physical theater.