Ana Andjelic

What are the 3 things you would wish to see or experience at the Golden Drum Festival this year and perhaps in 3-5 years from today?

I am hoping to meet a lot of young people from the region who are just starting their career in advertising. They always have the best questions and the best ideas. As to 3-5 years from now, Niels Bohr said, “predictions are hard, especially if they are about the future”.

How do you see New Europe as a creative community? What would you wish to keep and what to change?

I have been based in New York City since the beginning of my career, so am not well-versed in the New Europe as a creative community. What I do know, however, is that best creativity comes from restrictions. The New Europe creatives should keep their craftiness, ingenuity and ability to work within constraints going forward. It’s well-known that innovation regularly happens at the edge.

On a more personal note: Who were/are your idols? Who did/do you want to learn from? Did you have any mentors, teachers on the job that you would like to point out (and also thank)?

Interestingly enough, I never had idols. Even when I was a teenager, I never had posters of my favourite singers/actors/whatever. I think I have been – and still am – too much of a sceptic to have an idol. I definitely have thinkers that I really like, like contemporary sociologist Bruno Latour, or cognitive scientist Dan Ariely or my Columbia advisor David Stark and my New School advisor Jeff Goldfarb. I like their work and their thinking, and learned a lot from them. In my professional career, I found a lot of mentors and friends that I learned from. Nicole Victor and David Skokna occupy the top spots.

Childhood dreams? What did you want to be, to achieve before you’ve decided on your career? Did you ever get to realize your dreams? How come?

I realize my dreams every day. I don’t think that dreams are something out there in the future. Our dreams are here, today, and with us every day. Every day we work a little bit on them. I never had a massive childhood dream or a dream that I wanted to achieve before I started my career. It was a very iterative process; there were a lot of micro-dreams on the way. I have a vision of where I want to be, but I think that we all need to be flexible as to the roads that are going to get us there – sometimes the best opportunities come from unexpected places.