Biography

Teodor Celakoski is a cultural worker, right to the city activist and politician from Zagreb, Croatia. As of the early 2000s, he is engaged with cultural policies and institutional innovation in culture – he is a co-founder of Multimedia institute and socio-cultural center Mama; he initiated Clubture – a network for collaboration and exchange among actors of independent culture based on the principles of participatory budgeting; Zagreb Centre for Independent Culture and Youth Pogon – an institution founded as a civil-public partnership; and Kultura Nova Foundation – public institution supporting civil society organizations in the field of contemporary arts and culture. As a coordinator of the Right to the City initiative he was engaged for over a decade with local civic initiatives and workers‘ unions in campaigns fighting against the privatization of public space and infrastructure. The most prominent and successful campaign has mobilized the whole of Croatia – the petition for a referendum against the fifty years concession of motorways gathered more than half a million signatures in two weeks which made the government at the time give up on the motorways privatization attempts. In 2014 he received the European Cultural Foundation’s Princess Margriet Award. In 2017 he participated in initiating the municipal political platform Zagreb je NAŠ! and in 2019 the political platform on the national level Možemo! where he serves as co-coordinator. In the 2021 local elections in Zagreb he was elected to the City Assembly where he currently serves as a vice-president.