Association for contemporary art X-OP, based in Maribor, Slovenia, is a transnational platform for the production of contemporary art and culture. X-OP operates at the crossroads of contemporary visual and intermedia art as well as literature and music in relation to technology and digital culture in their socio-political context. It focuses on generating connections and exchanges between various artistic discourses and environments, encompassing a wide range of audiences. X-OP fosters the ideas and mobility of artists, researchers and producers by gradually connecting various cultural operators and professionals working in other scientific disciplines. This is done through a diverse array of activities such as exhibitions, readings, lectures, residencies, conferences, concerts, performances and workshops. By doing so, we aim to contribute to the pluralization of cultural production, experimentation in various mediums and manners of expression, intensive production and exchange of different types of knowledge and audience development.
In 2011, Association X-OP evolved out of a four-year Creative Europe project bearing the same name, the aim of which was to establish a gradually growing network of artists, researchers, operators, producers and cultural institutions, and connect them into a European platform for the creation of art. The project made a significant contribution to the collaboration, common production and an interdisciplinary approach to art among various European countries.
Since then, Association X-OP has been a partner in multiple projects co-funded by the Creative Europe program of the European Union, such as AC/DC: Augmented City / The Space for Digital Common Creative Citizenship (2015-2017), Other Words: a literary circuit for small and minority languages in Europe (2015-2019), and Risk Change (2016-2020). X-OP has also collaborated with other cultural institutions: ACE KIBLA, Maribor (Slovenia), Donostia Kultura, the Basque Country (Spain), Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art – MMSU, Rijeka (Croatia), RIXC, Riga (Latvia), ZINC, Marseille (France), Performance Festival Malamut, Ostrava (Czech Republic), Museum of Contemporary Art Vojvodina – MSUV, Novi Sad (Serbia), City Gallery Bihać (Bosna and Herzegovina), Culture Ireland, Instituto Politecnico de Tomar (Portugal), takomat, Cologne (Germany), Foras na Gaeilge (Ireland), Tresoar in Leeuwarden, Friesland (the Netherlands), Forum na mladi, Bitola (Macedonia), Agency for Contemporary Art Exchange and Kitchen – Open Innovation Lab, Budapest (Hungary), National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (Greece), and FOPSIM, Żejtun (Malta), among others.