When art becomes political practice and a tool of shared memory, supporting activists and movements across Europe and beyond during a weekend of training and action in Belgrade

This summer, DiEM25 members from across Europe and beyond gathered in Belgrade for a weekend of political training, collective reflection, and transnational solidarity. The DiEM25  Academy 2025, hosted at Dorćol Platz, became more than just a series of workshops: it demonstrated what we can build when conviction meets collaboration.

Within this space, my exhibition opened the weekend as part of a programme that brought together strategy, practical tools, and political art. For me, drawing is a tool for documenting and visually witnessing contemporary struggles, but it is also a way to create connections within movements, preserving faces, stories, and battles that often risk being forgotten.

During the DiEM25 Academy, participants – from first-time activists to experienced organisers – immersed themselves in hands-on sessions on movement-building, communication, and local organising. They worked on public speaking with actor and coach Ivan Tomić, exploring vulnerability, breath, and presence, with the idea that the strength of a public speech lies in its ability to connect, more than in formal perfection.

Johannes Fehr led a workshop on how to build movements from the ground up, emphasising that local struggles are global struggles, and that real transformation begins with small, consistent actions. The students at the forefront of the recent mass protests in Serbia shared how their mobilisation grew out of grief and transformed into a process of radical democracy, with blockades, assemblies, and collective actions despite repression and smear campaigns.

Other moments centred decolonial, feminist, and anti-racist practices, reminding us that decolonising our organising methods is not an abstract concept but a daily necessity. The sessions on communication and strategic media use, led by the DiEM25 team, showed the importance of telling our stories with clarity and courage, without waiting for permission to speak.

My exhibition became part of this context through drawings depicting activists, journalists, human rights defenders, and ordinary people facing repression and injustice, seeking to give them a visual presence that can be used in movements, on social media, and in campaigns, without filters.

The Academy also discussed the threats to democracy in Europe, censorship, media manipulation, and the repression of movements, but what made these days particularly meaningful was the cultural dimension: music, performances, readings, and the informal sharing of ideas and tools among people who, in different places, are fighting similar battles.

For me, participating in this Academy was not simply an act of exhibiting, but a way to embed drawing within a collective process, as a tool for storytelling and for building a shared memory of present struggles. In this context, art is not decoration, but part of a political practice that is nourished by collaboration, precision, and continuity.

The future is not something we wait for. It is something we build, day by day. Even with a drawing.

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Sources:

• A weekend of political training, grassroots strategy, and collective inspiration in the heart of Belgrade – DiEM25 (2025)
• DiEM25 Academy 2025 Full Programme
• Find your own voice: Public speaking as political power – DiEM25 Academy programme notes (2025)
• Building from below: Grassroots organising for change – Workshop by Johannes Fehr, DiEM25 Academy (2025)
• Insights from the trailblazers: The Serbian student protests – DiEM25 Academy session report (2025)
• Voices across borders: Shared struggles, shared hopes – Session led by Amir Kiyaei, MERA25 and DiEM25 (2025)
• Winning the message: Media, strategy, and representation – Communications workshop with DiEM25 team (2025)
• Democracy on trial: Facing censorship and repression – Final panel, DiEM25 Academy (2025)
• Personal notes and reflections from Gianluca Costantini

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