To culture, from the makers at the margins
Written by Heartefact, the host of the upcoming Satellite BEYOND, “Culture for Development Forum – Skopje 2026” taking place in Skopje, North Macedonia, 14-16 May, 2026.
This letter is a part of Culture Action Europe’s At the Heart series, “Love Letters to Culture.” This February, we’re inviting hosts of the upcoming 2026 Satellite BEYOND events to write their own love letter. Not necessarily to a person, but to something that holds meaning within their Satellites: a location, an object, a site, an event, a fleeting moment between people, or something more abstract, like potential, hope, care, continuity. These letters speak to what members love about culture, why this matters where they are, and what makes their Satellite more than just a programme.
What an intimate privilege to see where care blossoms across our network’s communities. Learn more and join us at a Satellite near you.
Dear Culture,
We greet you from the margins.
Not as visitors – as makers.
From the so-called periphery, where things are rarely finished yet very alive.
You grow in provisional rooms, in tired buildings, in suspended conversations, refusing closure.
Are we together or not? And if we are, what are we building? Where are we going?
How delicate, yet stubborn you are. We practice you. We shape you while you shape us. The ground beneath is uncertain, unstable, and yet – you move. You connect. You evolve. You endure.
Do we endure?
To love you is not a mere feeling, it’s an action!
Our gestures are not heroic, but essential:
– artists who translate pain into questions rather than answers
– organisers who sustain spaces without certainty of their survival
– audiences who linger after the lights dim because departure feels premature.
You carry war and folklore, fear of the unknown, loss, love, queerness, and acts of care. You cradle what societies cannot: borders, displacements, silences, conflicting memories, unfinished histories. You do not resolve them. You render them visible. You turn them into encounters, friction, empathy, dialogue, bridges, reconnection.
Loving you is a refusal of easy narratives. It is resistance, persistence, insistence on complexity — even when inconvenient. Especially when inconvenient.
A better world is possible. We are already building it.
We will make it together.
Yours truly,
Heartefact
P.S:
Culture.
Infrastructure.
Universal basic income.
Good things come in threes. Let’s continue this conversation.
Photo Credit: Dženet Dreković