Sanja Horvatinčić: Facts on the ground
Thursday, 27 November 2014 at 18:00
It seems that the word “spomenik” (pl. spomeniks) has recently entered English vocabulary, and is gradually becoming a part of international jargon in the field of modern architecture. To illustrate this claim, it is enough to image search “spomenik(s)” at www.google.co.uk.
I will try to explain reasons, as well as positive and negative consequences of the global virtual interest for Yugoslavian memorial sculpture. Does higher international visibility of Yugoslavian monuments dedicated to the National Liberation Struggle, Socialist revolution and Workers’ movement contributes to their visibility on “Croatian horizon” and within the Croatian National Heritage List? What is it, after all, so appealing in the ruins of socialist monuments – both from the local and from the western perspective? One thing is certain – the loss of their historical context, ideological content and memorial function contributes to the process of levelling histories on an imaginary Croatian horizon.
* The photographs shown at the exhibition belong to a vast photo-documentation made during the field work done since 2011 at the Institute of Art History in Zagreb as part of the doctoral research. By juxtaposing the facts on the ground and the highly-aestheticized photographs that have spread throughout the virtual space, I want to highlight the rapid process of their deterioration, and warn of the urgency of making a national strategy of protection and renovation of this important segment of 20th century memorial heritage.
Sanja Horvatinčić (Institute of Art History, Zagreb) is involved in the Postgraduate Programme of Humanist Sciences at the University of Zadar. Her main interests include art-historical and cultural aspects of Yugoslav memorial sculpture dedicated to the workers’ movement, the socialist revolution, and the liberation struggle of Yugoslav peoples, whereby her research is primarily dedicated to the possibilities of their reaffirmation and reactualization in the present-day society.
more about the exhibition:
https://www.facebook.com/events/359452107568312/