False stories from the history of Mostar

ABSTRACT

This visual essay presents a set of stories written for a performative walk in public space, complemented with a short reflection and documentary graphic material. The art intervention, titled ‘False stories from the history of Mostar’, was conceived and performed by Abart – an art production platform started in the city of Mostar in 2008 to work on contextual forms of socially engaged art practices. The intervention addressed eight problematic sites in the city, through fictional stories which aimed to expose the underlying processes shaping the transitional management of space in Mostar.

KEYWORDS:

• Site-specific art
• public space
• neoliberalism
• socially engaged art

Acknowledgements

The stories were translated from Bosnian to English by Kathryn Hampton.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Anja Bogojević is a PhD candidate at the Department of Cultural Studies at the Josip Juraj Strossmayer University of Osijek and senior assistant at the Academy of Fine Arts, University of Sarajevo. In 2016, she co-founded Mart – an association for curatorial and artistic practices with Amila Puzić. Previously, she studied Comparative Literature and History of Art at the Faculty of Philosophy in Sarajevo. She co-founded the platform Abart in Mostar and worked there as curator (2008–2014).

Amila Puzić is a PhD candidate in History of Art at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Zagreb. She studied Comparative Literature and History of Art at the Faculty of Philosophy in Sarajevo where she completed a Masters in Art History. In 2016, she co-founded Mart – an association for curatorial and artistic practices with Anja Bogojević. Previously, she worked as a senior assistant at the Department of Fine Arts, Faculty of Education and the Faculty of Interior Design at the University ‘Džemal Bijedić’ in Mostar. She co-founded the platform Abart in Mostar and worked there as curator (2008–2014).

Mela Žuljević studied Product Design and Visual Communication at the Academy of Fine Arts in Sarajevo. She is currently a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Architecture and Arts (University of Hasselt) and part of the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions – ITN project titled ‘Critical Heritage Studies and the Future of Europe’. She was assistant professor at the Faculty of Interior Design (University ‘Dzemal Bijedic’) in Mostar from 2016 to 2017. She co-founded and coordinated the platform Abart in Mostar (2008–2014).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the European Cultural Foundation under Art in Divided Cities project [grant number 910].