Sara Oklobdzija / Sandra Raes (°Belgrade, 1980) is a Brussels-based artist-producer. She received university education in both Serbia and Belgium and holds masters degrees in Philosophy (University of Belgrade), Audiovisual Arts (Faculty of Dramatic Arts, Belgrade) and Film and Visual Culture (University of Antwerp). Her research in the fields of art and culture continuously questions the intricate web of relations between migration, community (re)building, equality and collectiveness. 

 

Sara is an artivist or socially engaged artist with her own speculative documentary practice. Through her research, she raises sharp questions around temporality, identity, migration and collective responsibility. Together with co-thinkers, artists and activists, she founded INFUZIJA, a 'Center for Cultural Decentralisation of Serbia', in 2003. In the post-communist, post-war area affected by economic and cultural sanctions, INFUZIJA focused on disintegration and decentralisation. The center produced numerous influential projects, including Theater-Shelter – a series of a hundred pop-up performances in rural southern Serbia – and HOSTEL Yellowbed – a legal youth hostel for EU backpackers containing an 'illegal' or 'secret' arts center for international exchange and peer education. 

 

Since 2012 Sara is based in Belgium, where she continues to work around identity, reality and (mis)representation. She increasingly combines her practice as an artist and programmer (Sara Oklobdzija) with her work as a producer (Sandra Raes). In 2019 she joined ROBIN as general manager. In 2020 she founded KOROW - a 'Center for Cultural Decontamination, Social Diagnostics and Social Correction'. Sara is currently working on a PhD with the working title 'The School of Two-sides Integration or How to Build a Functional Host Society', affiliated with RITCS and VUB.