Schools in the Museum / Museums in the Schools – Project Collaboration with the Museum of Prilep (2019)

In 2019, the Center for Contemporary Art – Prilep (CSLU–Prilep) participated in a segment of the interdisciplinary project “Schools in the Museum or Museums in the Schools”, implemented by the National Institute for Protection of Cultural Monuments and Museum – Prilep, Department of Social and Spiritual Culture, under the coordination of ethnologist Aleksandar Cvetkoski.

The collaboration between the museum and CSLU-Prilep was seamless and fruitful, resulting in an engaging final product that bridges generations and institutions. The goal of the project was to raise awareness and preserve intangible cultural heritage, focusing particularly on social culture – the unseen, untouchable, yet deeply influential element of cultural identity.
Children from local elementary schools took center stage, expressing and performing fragments of everyday social communication, values, and humor – with a special focus on “Prilep’s witty banter”, a cherished example of regional social culture.

The project successfully planted seeds of cultural consciousness among youth, encouraging critical thought and pride in identity. Using creative media and performance as tools, the initiative showed how social values shape who we are from birth to death, and how cultural transmission through humor, dialect, and local storytelling carries invisible, but essential, heritage.
A highlight of the project was a series of videos, including one dedicated entirely to Prilep’s local humor, available on the Facebook page "Etnokinezija Etnologija" – a testament to the vivid connection between tradition, education, and modern digital storytelling.