We believe in the fundamental right to space. The spaces we create serve as tools for rethinking established social orders within socio-political realities. Through reclaiming abandoned and forgotten buildings and the creation of autonomous communities, we aim to challenge and transform current social structures through DIY practices.

Our goal is to empower youth and other generations to self-organize and create inclusive environments where alternatives can flourish free from hierarchy. We believe that people have the right to be together in spaces where they do not need to consume anything or justify their presence. We strive to create places where people can just be and have the choice and freedom to meet others, organize, experiment, fail, think freely and be free from judgment. Rather than waiting for an authority to give us the things we want, we take matters into our own hands through the power of a common learning-while-doing process

• Reclaim and rebuild abandoned and forgotten buildings into alternative community socio-cultural spaces.
• Freedom to make and remake our city outside of the homogeneous and monetary vision on space use and property.
• Empower all the participants of the project and space-users (both local and international) by enabling ownership and facilitating initiatives within the project and respective spaces.
• Enable a collective experience.
• Co-create a place with the local communities and the international volunteers, where you can experiment and express yourself freely.
• Organize an international solidarity network between each space and locally existing network.
• Aiming to create a transparent and open structure of knowledge exchange through documenting and materializing (documentaries, podcasts, pictures, booklets, zines, etc).

In July 2025, Space Tetova would lose its location. Together with the several collectives, we decided to help Space Tetova find a new location and carry out the necessary renovations. After an exciting year-long search, Space Tetova finally found a private building. A former communist printing house with a large outdoor space. A lot of work, but also a lot of help! Space Tetova, Toestand, Termokiss, DKC Sarajevo, and DKC Pomorandza together provided 120 volunteers.


The most productive construction site ever in the history of the international project. In 10 days, we carried out the following interventions: new electricity, construction of toilets and a shower, installation of wheelchair access, new doors, renovation of the windows, painting of the entire space, construction of a music studio, construction of furniture, construction of a pergola, creation of a vegetable garden, installation of a kitchen and bar, moved everything from the old to the new location, etc. And all this while cooking for 120 people, holding meetings about the future of the international project, and making a film.

In juli 2024 we took a moment to reflect. Not each from their side but together in Termokiss. We worked on different workgroups like harassement, documentation or website, we made a movie, cooked, partied and painted Termokiss in pink.

In July 2023, we traveled with our partners from North Macedonia (Space Tetova), Bosnia and Herzegovina (DKC Sarajevo), and Kosovo (Termokiss) to Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro. There, we assisted a group of young people in finding a building and converting it into a social and cultural meeting place.


It was extremely hot when 100 participants from six different countries arrived to transform the empty ground floor of a residential block into a social and cultural center, which is still active today.


Because the building was already in good condition, the project went very smoothly: there was time to set up an organized workspace, a kitchen, and side activities such as radio and community work with neighbors.


This was the beginning of DKC Pomorandza.

In July 2022 Toestand invited Termokiss, Space Tetova, Uzina and DKC Sarajevo to Brussels to have a different kind of project, focusing more on exchange of knowledge and expertise as well as common problems, challenges and ambitions for the future of the international project. More than 100 people gathered in an abandoned monastery in Brussels to bring it life, music, community and a lot of workshops and debates.


The Brussels exchange was a starting point for the further development of the project, to think together about how these spaces that were created throughout the years one by one can collaborate together to form a real European network of alternative spaces, with a more continual exchange and how we can support each other in different ways. It was also used to address challenges and problems within the annual project that we never had the time to talk about between the meetings, building and partying each year. The result of this work is presented within the charter that we included in this booklet, and in the evolution of the project that has happened already in the preparation for Podgorica and in the organisation of future editions.

In August 2021 the international project implemented in Bosnia and Herzegovina brought together Toestand, Termokiss, SCS Tetova and Uzina who were joined by a group of local volunteers. We builded a skatepark in the municipality of Ilidza and occupied a building of the university of Sarajevo in the centre of Sarajevo.


This initiated the formation of Social-cultural centre Sarajevo (locally known as Društveno-kulturni centar Sarajevo or DKC in short). DKC Sarajevo consists of a group of volunteers gathered around the idea of renovating and reviving abandoned city buildings and public spaces for the needs of the local community.


The center serves as a meeting place for ideas based on the principle „for everyone, by everyone“ where we organize activities related to the promotion of countercultural practices and art. Sarajevo deserves an independent social-cultural space in which we will usefully spend our time, and develop initiatives and projects of wider social and cultural significance.

The international Balkan network continues to expand. After Pristina and Tetova, young people in Tirana asked the network to join in building a socio-cultural venue. With 80 young people from the four countries, we transformed an abandoned tractor factory in Tirana into a place for initiative and experimentation.


However, less than a year after its foundation, Uzina was forced out of the once-publicly owned factory. The group relocated temporarily to Tirana Backpackers Hostel, a venue that served primarily as a commercial hostel, but was left largely unused due to travel restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Uzina crowd managed to transform the space into an active hub, bringing their own crowd to organise poetry nights, flea markets, music, Last Uzina party (July 2021) film, queer culture and yoga clubs, and their occasional edgy parties.


After it was asked to vacate the hostel in June 2021, Uzina was left space-less. People follow their own paths and Uzina is now history. We know that there is a critical mass of youngsters in Tirana that are in need for free space, one day we will return!

Social Cultural Space Tetova started after a visit to Termokiss and an email exchange with Toestand. In 2018, youngsters from Termokiss, Toestand and Swiss joined the the local people of Tetova in reviving an abandoned radio station into a social-cultural center, together with an outdoor space into a skatepark.


However, in October 2022, without prior warning, the newly formed governance of the Municipality of Tetova issued a document demanding that the community vacate their premises within five days. Despite this decision violating a signed memorandum granting the community the right to use the premises until 2024, the new local administration employed various violent means of pressure, including public defamation by the mayor himself and an illegal break-in. They violently took over the space and have been controlling it since November 2022. Since then, only a few events have been organized, all by party pundits of the municipal administration. This violent seizure forced Space Tetova to seek alternatives to continue their activities. With the help of EED, they were able to create a new community space and turn a private property into a public space for the needs of the community and the wider city public. Almost two years later they need to move again. What will be the next destination? In 2025 all the different crews return to Tetova to help them create a new space.

At the request of Associación Anaquerando Gitana, 45 people from Spain, Belgium, Italy, France went to Granada. There, we brightened up a public park with local associations. It was given rainbow colours - hence the name - and refurbished according to the needs of its visitors. Together with them, we built play areas for young and old, sports and games facilities and made an indoor space available again.

Termokiss is a community-run center in Prishtina, and sees its mission as stimulating urban and civil exchange, reflection, and creating change. The project started in 2016 after a joint effort from Toestand, Mache (Swiss partner), Prishtina Architecture week, and a bunch of locals.

Operating from what was formerly an abandoned and forgotten building in south-western Prishtina, Termokiss now welcomes a range of activities as long as they are not-for- profit. The local community manages all the activities and organizational processes. The activities that take place in this space are determined both by the needs of the community and by the skills offered by the volunteers. The space promotes mutual aid and cooperation and welcomes everyone, especially those whose voices and contributions are not always heard or appreciated.

Cultural Di@logue invited Toestand in the summer of 2015 to participate in Transformers in Kremenchuk (Ukraine): a festival about the re-appropriation of old Soviet architecture. In one week time, 12 Belgian volunteers and a team of about 15 Ukrainians converted an abandoned cinema into a cultural youth space. After the winter they found a new place and became Adaptors.