TERMOKISS: CULTURAL CENTER LED BY COMMUNITY

We, as the Termokiss community, refuse to agree with the small number of possibilities that the present is offering us, and we’re doing something to start the change. We’re always going to choose being “naive” (if the opposite is apathy) and hope that what we do can help for an open, cooperative and fruitful future for people.

When we come out of the cage of the present, what song will we all sing? What story will we weave for ourselves?

The Termokiss community is composed of people from all walks of life, who have met by chance to find a common goal in unison. Our community is open for all the people who feel the need to grow themselves and the environment around them.

We treat our common environment as a home and school. We come at Termokiss to connect with each other and to share stories about ourselves.

We come to find support, to face the fears we have and to learn new skills and to be a better and productive being. This process is enriched by workshops, concerts, film screenings, lectures, discussions, games and other activities that happen in the space on a daily basis. An even richer experience is offered by clubs, which are long-term projects that create products based on common interests, such as: The Neighborhood Club, Poetic Release, Music Workshop, the film, chess, reading, self-defense, stand-up comedy clubs and many other things.

The Termokiss community members meet every Wednesday to discuss the weekly subjects and take decisions together. Most of the members are volunteers and there are full-time staff members who gather us together every day to take responsibility in relation to the community, space and administration. There are many ways to become a member. You don’t need to have an idea on what you want before joining the community. If you’re persistent on finding yourself, we’ll promise that the idea will come in time. You can end up starting a club or joining a club that already exists. You can take responsibility for the maintenance of the space or the organizing of the community. We would really like meeting you and meet your potential, so never hesitate to contact us. Besides the space being used for activities from other initiatives, the Termokiss community constantly produces its own activities. One of the first activities was the ‘Krejt Ka Pak’ concert (October, 2016), to raise funds and present the Center, which has brought some of the biggest artists of alternative music in Pristina, including over 750 participants. After some months, we co-organized ‘Time’s Up’ a two-week program with 9 activities that had the treatment of daily issues in Kosovo as a goal and put an emphasis on the importance of cooperation between different initiatives. The next year ‘Krejt Ka Pak’ returned as a 4 day program, with 16 other activities that have been a short display of that which we could have had every day in Termokiss: a lecture in the morning, a discussion in the middle of the day, later an exhibition, continuing with a workshop and a concert in the evening. Today we can proudly say that we are close to this dream, by seeing how the clubs have flourished. In the year 2018 together with Dokufest and Anibar we organized film screenings and discussions every week based on “Hacking Urban Space’, a project that presented alternative and stable solutions for the urban problems of our cities.

Another dream of ours is coming to life. Through Termokiss, now we’ve widened the horizons by traveling and helping in building social centers throughout the world. In the year 2017, Termokiss was invited on a project for ‘documenta14’, one of the biggest events in the world.

Community representatives have been in Kassel (Germany) to build a collective village together with Toestand (Belgium), Happy Positive (Switzerland) and Soshenko 33 (Ukraine), as part of the project ‘Title on the Spot’. In July of 2018, Termokiss community members together with Toestand revitalized an old building in Tetova (Macedonia), by giving a skate park to the community there. Tirana (Albania) is our latest international project where on the summer of this year together with the Social Center community in Tetova, have revitalized the Autotractors Plant in Tirana, a space which is now known as Uzina.space. And the next year another Balkans location will be our destination together with the community of Tetova, Tirana and Belgium to also create a Center for the community’s needs there.

We, as the Termokiss community, refuse to agree with the small number of possibilities that the present is offering us, and we’re doing something to start the change. We’re always going to choose being “naive” (if the opposite is apathy) and hope that what we do can help for an open, cooperative and fruitful future for people.

Termokiss is a community-led center in Pristina with a mission for urban and civil exchange, reflection and change.