dr. sc. Barbara Balen

Barbara Balen was born in Osijek, where she completed a language-focused secondary school programme and graduated from the Cultural Studies programme, majoring in Media Culture, at the Department of Cultural Studies of Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek. She attended the postgraduate interdisciplinary university doctoral programme in Cultural Studies, track: Culture, Art and Literature in the European Context, at the Doctoral School of Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek. Under the supervision of Prof. Željko Pavić, PhD, she completed her doctoral dissertation entitled Semiotic Changes in Osijek Street Names during the 20th Century and was awarded a doctoral degree in interdisciplinary social sciences. She is employed at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Osijek as a Senior Teaching Assistant.

During her employment at the Academy of Arts in Osijek, later the Academy of Arts and Culture, she coordinated several festivals organised by the Academy: the International Festival of Theatre Academies Dioniz from 2009 to 2015, the International Puppetry Review Lutkokaz from 2010 to 2016, the international festival Art and Woman in 2016 and 2019, and Julije Knifer Days in 2017. She edited the collections of student papers Koja si ti legenda?! in 2012 and Bajsom kroz meandar in 2014. In July 2015, she participated in a summer school organised by Leeds Beckett University in Leeds and in the international radical theatre festival Flare in Manchester, United Kingdom, as part of the Erasmus+ programme. In June 2016 and 2017, she undertook professional development at the international theatre festival ACT in Bilbao, Spain, with the support of Acción Cultural Española. In September 2019, she further developed her professional skills at ESMAE, Politécnico do Porto, Portugal, as part of Erasmus+ mobility. She served as Communications Manager on the international project All Strings Attached (2015–2017) within the Creative Europe programme and as an associate on the international project EU Contemporary Puppetry Critical Platform (ECiPeCiP) (2020–2023), also within the Creative Europe programme. In 2025, she led the BIP programme Art, Space and the Public(s) in cooperation with the Catholic Private University Linz, Austria. In June 2025, she served as a jury member at the international ACT Festival in Bilbao, Spain.

She completed the two-year cultural management training programme National Arts Management Intensive: Croatia, organised by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia and the DeVos Institute, Washington, D.C., USA, from 2013 to 2015.

In March 2017, she completed the Programme of Pedagogical, Psychological, Didactic and Methodological Education at the Faculty of Education.

In 2018, 2019 and 2020, she served as a member of the Committee for the Evaluation of the Quality of Programme Applications of the Kultura Nova Foundation.

She is fluent in English and German and has a passive knowledge of French, Italian and Russian.

Links: https://www.bib.irb.hr/pregled/znanstvenici/362550

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