Živa
Kovačević

A curious explorer of
relationships between people,
ideas, places, cultures, and nature.

 

Guided by fascination, I work across disciplines using strategy, art, and writing to reimagine futures. I belong to the in-between, and feel most at home in the liminal spaces where ideas loosen, evolve, and connect into living ecosystems.

My best work happens during island runaways, in partnership with leaders who consider not only human ambition, but also the well-being of more-than-human worlds.

Živa
Kovačević

A curious explorer of
relationships between
people, ideas, places,
cultures, and nature.

 

Guided by fascination, I work across disciplines using strategy, art, and writing to reimagine futures. I belong to the in-between, and feel most at home in the liminal spaces where ideas loosen, evolve, and connect into living ecosystems.

My best work happens during island runaways, in partnership with leaders who consider not only human ambition, but also the well-being of more-than-human worlds.

How do I pay attention?

My thinking spirals towards questions, such as how ecosystems talk to each other, how ideas migrate between disciplines, how beauty changes what we’re willing to care for, and how meaning forms, dissolves, and reforms again.

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Everything that we perceive as a solid reality, a tangible world, is a physical representation of creation. My interest is not in the final product, goal, or win, but in the creation beneath the surface, relationships between types of intelligence (nature’s, human, cultural, spatial, artificial), and the reciprocal influence between things that are forming our futures.

 

My gift is perspective, the way I see what others might miss, and using this knowing for creations, collaborations, and supporting my partners in their visions. I adore research, ideation, and the process itself, and I have a strong sense of pattern recognition. To share my thoughts with others, I developed the skill of storytelling and later stepped into the role of a strategic guide, so that ideas do not remain abstract but take form through aligned partnerships. 

 

I see potential everywhere — and I can’t unsee it, which is not always comfortable. It means I’m constantly aware of the gap between what is and what could be. My work lives in that gap.

 

It’s often said that therapists tend to the past, while creatives and visionaries tend to the future. I live somewhere in between. I listen for what is unfinished, unresolved, or trying to emerge, and help it find language, form, and direction.

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How do I pay attention?

MY THINKING SPIRALS TOWARDS QUESTIONS, SUCH AS HOW ECOSYSTEMS TALK TO EACH OTHER, HOW IDEAS MIGRATE BETWEEN DISCIPLINES, HOW BEAUTY CHANGES WHAT WE’RE WILLING TO CARE FOR, AND HOW MEANING FORMS, DISSOLVES, AND REFORMS AGAIN.

Everything that we perceive as a solid reality, a tangible world, is a physical representation of creation. My interest is not in the final product, goal, or win, but in the creation beneath the surface, relationships between types of intelligence (nature’s, human, cultural, spatial, artificial), and the reciprocal influence between things that are forming our futures.

 

My gift is perspective, the way I see what others might miss, and using this knowing for creations, collaborations, and supporting my partners in their visions. I adore research, ideation, and the process itself, and I have a strong sense of pattern recognition. To share my thoughts with others, I developed the skill of storytelling and later stepped into the role of a strategic guide, so that ideas do not remain abstract but take form through aligned partnerships. 

 

I see potential everywhere — and I can’t unsee it, which is not always comfortable. It means I’m constantly aware of the gap between what is and what could be. My work lives in that gap.

 

It’s often said that therapists tend to the past, while creatives and visionaries tend to the future. I live somewhere in between. I listen for what is unfinished, unresolved, or trying to emerge, and help it find language, form, and direction.

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How do I pay attention?

MY THINKING SPIRALS TOWARDS QUESTIONS, SUCH AS HOW ECOSYSTEMS TALK TO EACH OTHER, HOW IDEAS MIGRATE BETWEEN DISCIPLINES, HOW BEAUTY CHANGES WHAT WE’RE WILLING TO CARE FOR, AND HOW MEANING FORMS, DISSOLVES, AND REFORMS AGAIN.

blank

Everything that we perceive as a solid reality, a tangible world, is a physical representation of creation. My interest is not in the final product, goal, or win, but in the creation beneath the surface, relationships between types of intelligence (nature’s, human, cultural, spatial, artificial), and the reciprocal influence between things that are forming our futures.

 

My gift is perspective, the way I see what others might miss, and using this knowing for creations, collaborations, and supporting my partners in their visions. I adore research, ideation, and the process itself, and I have a strong sense of pattern recognition. To share my thoughts with others, I developed the skill of storytelling and later stepped into the role of a strategic guide, so that ideas do not remain abstract but take form through aligned partnerships. 

 

I see potential everywhere — and I can’t unsee it, which is not always comfortable. It means I’m constantly aware of the gap between what is and what could be. My work lives in that gap.

 

It’s often said that therapists tend to the past, while creatives and visionaries tend to the future. I live somewhere in between. I listen for what is unfinished, unresolved, or trying to emerge, and help it find language, form, and direction.

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How do I make sense of things?

Something catches my attention, and in the next hour, I’m nowhere to be found, diving deep into the idea that chose me to research it. I’m reading, observing, thinking, connecting dots that don’t obviously belong together. I take as much time as needed and descend into wandering between thoughts, until I understand the texture of the very thing that caught my attention.

 

My mind is wired for intensity and depth. I’m capable of long, immersive focus when something truly matters — which naturally shaped me into an interdisciplinary thinker. I point toward complex connections and come up with new ways of sensemaking, which demands non-binary thinking, non-linear learning, and intersections between seemingly unrelated fields of study.

 

When working on strategy or writing pieces, I need vast amounts of solitude for mindful creations, and I am operating on a different timeline compared to mainstream Western culture. 

 

In practice, this means I can’t be narrowed down to a single role, like that of a word-smith. I will dive as deep into the topics as my collaborators will let me, get to know all the corners of their identity, reimagine the next version of their presence, brand, project, vision, and help them make it a reality.

 

If that makes me hard to categorize, good. The world doesn’t need more neat labels; it needs better questions and solutions.

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How do I make sense of things?

Something catches my attention, and in the next hour, I’m nowhere to be found, diving deep into the idea that chose me to research it. I’m reading, observing, thinking, connecting dots that don’t obviously belong together. I take as much time as needed and descend into wandering between thoughts, until I understand the texture of the very thing that caught my attention.

 

My mind is wired for intensity and depth. I’m capable of long, immersive focus when something truly matters — which naturally shaped me into an interdisciplinary thinker. I point toward complex connections and come up with new ways of sensemaking, which demands non-binary thinking, non-linear learning, and intersections between seemingly unrelated fields of study.

When working on strategy or writing pieces, I need vast amounts of solitude for mindful creations, and I am operating on a different timeline compared to mainstream Western culture. 

blank

In practice, this means I can’t be narrowed down to a single role, like that of a word-smith. I will dive as deep into the topics as my collaborators will let me, get to know all the corners of their identity, reimagine the next version of their presence, brand, project, vision, and help them make it a reality.

 

If that makes me hard to categorize, good. The world doesn’t need more neat labels; it needs better questions and solutions.

Strategy as relational intelligence

For me, strategic thinking emerges from a deep interest in how humans, ecosystems, cultures, technologies, and creative impulses affect one another.

I am led by this urge to reimagine the future again and again, not as utopian fantasies, but as grounded alternatives to the current default. In a time of collective disorientation and the widespread loss of meaning among humans, I stand with those visionaries who are dedicating their work to the expansion of consciousness and imagine other ways of being, creating, leading, and living.

Practice, process, and the in-between

I live close to the edge of things,
close to the mystery, since this is
the place where truth usually sits.
This is the territory of the
undefined, uncomfortable,
the crossroad between
the past and the future.

That in-between place? Liminal spaces are my home terrain.

Those foggy, in-between phases where identities soften, old structures no longer hold, and the new hasn’t arrived yet, are spaces where transformation occurs. Most people rush through these spaces because it is pretty uncomfortable to be left in no man’s land. But for those willing to relax and look around, the liminal realm becomes the most fertile soil for changemaking.

 

The intersection of the worlds leads me to how we can practice the positive influence of current systems and businesses on complete ecosystems. The case study of the intersection of disciplines and ideas can be seen in one of the articles I wrote as a thought leadership piece in collaboration with one of my partners: “Can (and should) hoteliers be facilitators for better humanity?

Practice, process, and the in-between

I live close to the edge of things,
close to the mystery,
since this is the place
where truth usually sits.
This is the territory of
the undefined, uncomfortable,
the crossroad between
the past and the future.

blank

That in-between place? Liminal spaces are my home terrain.

 

Those foggy, in-between phases where identities soften, old structures no longer hold, and the new hasn’t arrived yet, are spaces where transformation occurs. Most people rush through these spaces because it is pretty uncomfortable to be left in no man’s land. But for those willing to relax and look around, the liminal realm becomes the most fertile soil for changemaking.

 

The intersection of the worlds leads me to how we can practice the positive influence of current systems and businesses on complete ecosystems. The case study of the intersection of disciplines and ideas can be seen in one of the articles I wrote as a thought leadership piece in collaboration with one of my partners: “Can (and should) hoteliers be facilitators for better humanity?

Practice, process, and the in-between

I live close to the edge of things, close to the mystery, since this is the place where truth usually sits. This is the territory of the undefined, uncomfortable, the crossroad between the past and the future.

blank

Liminal spaces are my home terrain.

Those foggy, in-between phases where identities soften, old structures no longer hold, and the new hasn’t arrived yet, are spaces where transformation occurs. Most people rush through these spaces because it is pretty uncomfortable to be left in no man’s land. But for those willing to relax and look around, the liminal realm becomes the most fertile soil for changemaking.

 

The intersection of the worlds leads me to how we can practice the positive influence of current systems and businesses on complete ecosystems. The case study of the intersection of disciplines and ideas can be seen in one of the articles I wrote as a thought leadership piece in collaboration with one of my partners: “Can (and should) hoteliers be facilitators for better humanity?

Mixing mediums by design, not out of confusion.

Philosophy is the ground beneath my feet, but I don’t stay trapped in abstraction. Humans are not here only to think — we are here to do, make, shape, and bring things into being. I care deeply about momentum, aliveness, and creation that actually enters the world.

Yes, I’m an artist. I work through many mediums — writing, strategy, painting, essays, podcasts, conversations, frameworks, and I think in images and metaphors. But don’t confuse that with being vague or ungrounded. Different mediums are simply different doors into the same room. They are all expressions and manifestations of the same impulse: to bring forward the visual beauty of human expression, to build new worlds, to nurture the societal nervous system, and to rebel against forces that destroy the planet: hustle culture, hyper-productivity, mindless extraction, and endless consumption. What I care about is coherence between what you say, what you do, and what you stand for.

 

I am a natural shapeshifter and vision intensifier in creation. When an invitation arrives (a theme-based conversation, a meaningful question, a complex challenge), I may use all of my mediums and move fluidly between roles, perspectives, and forms, which will allow me to access the best possible ideas and solutions.

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Mixing mediums by design, not out of confusion.

Yes, I’m an artist. I work through many mediums — writing, strategy, painting, essays, podcasts, conversations, frameworks, and I think in images and metaphors. But don’t confuse that with being vague or ungrounded. Different mediums are simply different doors into the same room. They are all expressions and manifestations of the same impulse: to bring forward the visual beauty of human expression, to build new worlds, to nurture the societal nervous system, and to rebel against forces that destroy the planet: hustle culture, hyper-productivity, mindless extraction, and endless consumption. What I care about is coherence between what you say, what you do, and what you stand for.

PHILOSOPHY IS THE GROUND BENEATH MY FEET, BUT I DON’T STAY TRAPPED IN ABSTRACTION. HUMANS ARE NOT HERE ONLY TO THINK — WE ARE HERE TO DO, MAKE, SHAPE, AND BRING THINGS INTO BEING. I CARE DEEPLY ABOUT MOMENTUM, ALIVENESS, AND CREATION THAT ACTUALLY ENTERS THE WORLD.

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I am a natural shapeshifter and vision intensifier in creation. When an invitation arrives (a theme-based conversation, a meaningful question, a complex challenge), I may use all of my mediums and move fluidly between roles, perspectives, and forms, which will allow me to access the best possible ideas and solutions.

Mixing mediums by design, not out of confusion.

Yes, I’m an artist. I work through many mediums — writing, strategy, painting, essays, podcasts, conversations, frameworks, and I think in images and metaphors. But don’t confuse that with being vague or ungrounded. Different mediums are simply different doors into the same room. They are all expressions and manifestations of the same impulse: to bring forward the visual beauty of human expression, to build new worlds, to nurture the societal nervous system, and to rebel against forces that destroy the planet: hustle culture, hyper-productivity, mindless extraction, and endless consumption. What I care about is coherence between what you say, what you do, and what you stand for.

Philosophy is the ground beneath my feet, but I don’t stay trapped in abstraction. Humans are not here only to think — we are here to do, make, shape, and bring things into being. I care deeply about momentum, aliveness, and creation that actually enters the world.

blank

I am a natural shapeshifter and vision intensifier in creation. When an invitation arrives (a theme-based conversation, a meaningful question, a complex challenge), I may use all of my mediums and move fluidly between roles, perspectives, and forms, which will allow me to access the best possible ideas and solutions.

How I partner and show up?

My work is not meant to happen strictly individually. As you may have noticed, I have quite a few of my own ideas on what to create, yet I am here for the collaboration. I don’t work with “clients”, I work with people. With partners. With collaborators. With humans who want to build something meaningful and are willing to be honest about the mess that comes with that.

 

I’m never strictly “professional” — because what I do requires intimacy, presence, and honesty. I read between the lines, I read the energy, I notice what’s not being said. I sense when something is off, even if it looks good on paper. 

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I am a contradiction: deeply individualistic and profoundly relational at the same time. I thrive when invited into collaboration. I need silence and solitude for clarity, and warm contact to bring ideas into the world. I value quality and influence over quantity, and I’m not endlessly available. Some things take longer because they should.


I have a distinctive way of thinking and writing, and can’t become a ghostwriter whose identity and values remain hidden. My presence is part of the work. I specialize in building ecosystems, not isolated projects. I care for legacies, not launches. And I am here for the culture, not content. If you’re willing to slow down, stay curious, and build something larger than yourself, we might recognize each other.

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I see brands as world-builders and trend-setters who shape behavior whether they mean to or not. I believe institutions are living ecosystems capable of large-scale change, carrying more influence than they often dare to acknowledge.

And for me, artists, leaders, and creatives are individuals with the highest potential to reshape our ways of perceiving realities and changing the inner and relational conversations. All of us, who are conscious enough to understand this, have the capacity, the power, and the immense cultural responsibility to actively co-create the world in which we actually want to live. 

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How I partner and show up?

My work is not meant to happen strictly individually. As you may have noticed, I have quite a few of my own ideas on what to create, yet I am here for the collaboration. I don’t work with “clients”, I work with people. With partners. With collaborators. With humans who want to build something meaningful and are willing to be honest about the mess that comes with that.

I’m never strictly “professional” — because what I do requires intimacy, presence, and honesty. I read between the lines, I read the energy, I notice what’s not being said. I sense when something is off, even if it looks good on paper. 

I am a contradiction: deeply individualistic and profoundly relational at the same time. I thrive when invited into collaboration. I need silence and solitude for clarity, and warm contact to bring ideas into the world. I value quality and influence over quantity, and I’m not endlessly available. Some things take longer because they should.

I have a distinctive way of thinking and writing, and can’t become a ghostwriter whose identity and values remain hidden. My presence is part of the work. I specialize in building ecosystems, not isolated projects. I care for legacies, not launches. And I am here for the culture, not content. If you’re willing to slow down, stay curious, and build something larger than yourself, we might recognize each other.

How I partner and show up?

My work is not meant to happen strictly individually. As you may have noticed, I have quite a few of my own ideas on what to create, yet I am here for the collaboration. I don’t work with “clients”, I work with people. With partners. With collaborators. With humans who want to build something meaningful and are willing to be honest about the mess that comes with that.

 

I’m never strictly “professional” — because what I do requires intimacy, presence, and honesty. I read between the lines, I read the energy, I notice what’s not being said. I sense when something is off, even if it looks good on paper. 

 

I am a contradiction: deeply individualistic and profoundly relational at the same time. I thrive when invited into collaboration. I need silence and solitude for clarity, and warm contact to bring ideas into the world. I value quality and influence over quantity, and I’m not endlessly available. Some things take longer because they should.

blank
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I have a distinctive way of thinking and writing, and can’t become a ghostwriter whose identity and values remain hidden. My presence is part of the work. I specialize in building ecosystems, not isolated projects. I care for legacies, not launches. And I am here for the culture, not content. If you’re willing to slow down, stay curious, and build something larger than yourself, we might recognize each other.

I see brands as world-builders and trend-setters who shape behavior whether they mean to or not. I believe institutions are living ecosystems capable of large-scale change, carrying more influence than they often dare to acknowledge.

 

And for me, artists, leaders, and creatives are individuals with the highest potential to reshape our ways of perceiving realities and changing the inner and relational conversations. All of us, who are conscious enough to understand this, have the capacity, the power, and the immense cultural responsibility to actively co-create the world in which we actually want to live. 

I see brands as world-builders and trend-setters who shape behavior whether they mean to or not. I believe institutions are living ecosystems capable of large-scale change, carrying more influence than they often dare to acknowledge.

And for me, artists, leaders, and creatives are individuals with the highest potential to reshape our ways of perceiving realities and changing the inner and relational conversations. All of us, who are conscious enough to understand this, have the capacity, the power, and the immense cultural responsibility to actively co-create the world in which we actually want to live. 

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I see creativity as
the most human gift,
which is becoming more and more needed.

Creativity is the prism
through which I experience reality,
and I use it as a ticket to the world.

Spiced up personality

Besides being sensitive, gentle, artistic, and imaginative, I am also a fiery woman who likes to laugh aloud, knows who she is and what she stands for, and has a grounded leadership presence. 

 

I’m a foodie and a lover of earthly pleasures, such as quality meals, a cup of handpicked herbal tea, sunbathing, touching a book cover, long solo wanderings in nature, hours spent in galleries, cinemas, theaters, and all things beautiful. Art and abstraction are my native languages.

 

I am not a static person, yet a conscious explorer of the planet, nature, societies, and cultures. When the winds of inspiration call, I don’t think twice about what to do next. There’s a high possibility of finding me on one of the Mediterranean islands or somewhere between Azores and Canaries. 

 

I was born and raised in Ljubljana, Slovenia, a tiny, gorgeous Slavic land in the heart of Europe. Indeed, I’m Slavic, passionate, hospitable, and stereotypically don’t do split bills. Yet I’m also warm by nature, preferring a hug to a handshake. I’d rather walk and talk than sit across a table. I can’t sit still for a long time and need to stretch in between long working hours so that the energy can flow. Expect quite a few “bio breaks” between meetings and discovery sessions.

 

There is a particular kind of spice in my presence. Besides creativity, I also bring a bit of disruption and shake-ups to the table. I don’t like being cornered, micromanaged, or squeezed into someone else’s timeline. I believe collaboration thrives when it’s rooted in trust and working towards a greater common good in mind. Working under too much pressure is a no-no for my nervous system.

 

Movement is one of my top priorities and values. I’ve been active and sporty since age five and later adopted a functional gym approach, since injuries and surgeries left me out of most of the sports I adored. These circumstances demanded more than a decade of my attention, and one could say that health-related hardships were deserving of my “spiritual awakening”. Creativity was always the saving force, and still is.

* to continue the reimaganing conversation write me at enter@spacefordreaming.com *

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