From April 10 to 12, 2026, the ROOM 100 collective is organising the 7th edition of the contemporary circus festival “Peculiar Families Festival”. However, this year’s edition also brings a new, special subtitle: Days of Kopilica. Because this time the festival does not come “to” the neighbourhood, but rather emerges “from” the neighbourhood – in close collaboration with the Kopilica Split association and, more importantly, with the residents of this Split area themselves.
While in previous editions, ROOM 100 localised circus risk to philosophical, poetic and political places through program selection and production decisions, this year it intersects that risk at a specific address – Kopilica. The collaboration with the association and residents is not only symbolic, it determines the location, but also the very core of the program. The residents of Kopilica have only a sports field and a station for the legendary Split metro as public facilities – these very spaces become a stage, a workshop and a gathering place.
The entire program of the seventh edition – from contemporary circus performances and workshops to accompanying musical and advocacy content – is designed as a place of meeting. A meeting that is based on the exchange of knowledge, experiences and inspiration, but also on clearly defined values: environmental and social responsibility, cooperation, respect for citizens and natural boundaries and consensus on the minimum conditions for a good and accessible life in Split.
The Peculiar Families Festival – Days of Kopilice is a space in which we will together address questions that concern us all: how do we find coordinates for the ways in which we create, how we work and how – and with whom – we live in a society that often does not know how to take care of itself or its only home? Somewhere at the intersection of science and art, sociability and autonomy, knowledge and intuition, creation and production, there is a vacuum of our fear of acting together in the face of a pessimistic future. It is in this vacuum that some of us find a space of self-sufficiency – practices that are neither outside nor inside the box of usual artistic or professional practices, but rather reflect on the box itself. This festival is proof that that box can be broken – together, on Kopilica.
ROOM 100 is an internationally awarded contemporary circus collective from Split founded by Antonia Kuzmanić and Jakov Labrović in 2010. ROOM 100 produces and distributes contemporary circus performances and other artistic works of the collective, manages HALA 100 — a residency venue for research in contemporary circus arts, hosts international contemporary circus artists for performances, residencies and workshops, realizes a program of film screenings “Kino Cirkus” in several Croatian cities, brings the contemporary circus arts to smaller island communities and cities in Dalmatian hinterland, Gorski kotar and Hrvatsko zagorje through the project “Circus on the periphery” and implements a number of other projects for the development of the audience in the contemporary circus arts sector. ROOM 100 is a partner in the projects “CIRCUS WITHOUT CIRCUS” and “circusnext PLaTFoRM” which are co-financed by the European Commission through the Creative Europe program and is a member of the Circostrada network (Antonia Kuzmanić is a member of the Circostrada Steering Committee since 2018).
