Almissa Open Art

At its point of inception in 2010, Almissa was a festival of contemporary art, but later on, it started focusing on performance programs, mostly presented at the Mirabella Fortress. Even though the festival included exhibitions, actions, installations and interventions in the public space, Almissa has become a synonym for a festival of performances.

To avoid making the festival conventional and socially acceptable, we had to set new criteria, so we decided to climb down from the fortress and go to the streets and squares, without any exact announcement of the program, and placing the artists in the spotlight by presenting and announcing their performances. Hence, we created a new audience – people who weren’t quite sure what was happening and why. We established direct contact with the people (not an audience), making space for a new dimension, a new experience, and, hopefully, a new perception of the festival.
Almissa didn’t want to be a part of the Omiš Cultural Summer and the cultural tourism offer that takes part in creating the illusion of summer prosperity (along with the Festival of Dalmatian klapa, the Pirate nights, the Pirate Battle, folklore evenings, fishermen evenings, folk festivals and other manifestations).

We were looking for a new approach by engaging in risk, experiment, a form that was not yet tested or shaped by value scales. We were focusing on self-examination and self-reflection, ignoring the already established practices, standards and ideologies; the main ideas were the absence of ego and self-presentation with the intent to be equal to others, mixed with the people of Omiš and their guests, which we literally were during those days.

Omiš is known as the center of the klapa milieu and the festival that brought the klapa singing to the level of world heritage, so with the Almissa program we also thought about this context by producing voices, containing none of the skills and narcissism that are usually a part of the klapa performance.

To make these performances happen, we have invited artists of whom we were certain that they would accept such an approach and challenge, those who could demonstrate their faith in art and the role of artists in society through their work and action, both human and artistic.