Dominika Belanská

 

Dominika Belanská is an architect, placemaker and art educator. She graduated in architecture from AFAD in Bratislava, Slovakia. Her focus is strategic and participatory city planning, revitalisation of public spaces and mediation of architecture and art to the public, especially to youth.

Currently, I work as a program manager for Foundation Orange in the non-profit Center for Philanthropy, as an art educator in the Slovak National Gallery and Kunsthalle Bratislava, and as an independent consultant for involvement of communities in the making of the city.

I am a member of the civic organization Jedlé mesto, the professional initiatives Do.Co.Mo.Mo Slovakia and Námestie pre ľudí, and the civic initiative Parkotvor. I am also a founding member and co-manager of Záhrada POD PYRAMÍDOU, the first urban rooftop garden in Slovakia.

Organization: ‘Jedlé mesto, o.z.’, Slovakia

Záhrada POD PYRAMÍDOU, located on the roof-terrace of Slovak Radio in Bratislava, is the first rooftop community garden in Slovakia. The ambition of its founding members, who are from the civic association Jedlé mesto and the NA STRECHE initiative, is to enable the local community to rediscover this formerly inaccessible, non-functional rooftop landscape, revive it with their help and turn it into a diverse and inclusive space, from which the whole neighbourhood would benefit.

The project enables the members of the community garden to have a decisive voice in the planning and making of the garden facilities and activities, actively participate in the transformation of a public space and through this experience, look at their neighbourhood and their own roles within the neighbourhood from a different perspective.

The project operates on the premise that if people have the opportunity to meet and share a space on an informal basis, they will communicate and seek out means of common understanding, respect and cooperation to achieve their shared goals, be it smaller challenges like building wooden raised beds or grand challenges like changing the urban environment into a healthier, more comfortable and happier place.