They were ahead of us

Eight years later, the question of why those white lines were painted on the asphalt less than a day before our visit still lingers uncomfortably. If only we had understood the signs in time! But now, looking back at the world of 2021, it starts to make sense from what we know now.

“Lines on the Street”, Lea Kukovičić and Nikolas Lestaeghe, Cvjetni trg, Zagreb, 2021 / video STEALTH.unlimited

It seems good to start our story with these white lines, as they proved a jellying point of sorts for the group. They were not merely road lines – no, someone had made a point of placing a meticulous traffic scheme on the blistering black terrain of what was supposedly a temporary container village. The scent of the paint was still remotely in the air, propagated by the hot asphalt. We had been brought here like a band touring the earthquake-stricken Banija Region in our mid-sized tour bus – if only it were clear what gig we were expected to perform.

 We’re back here for the 2029 edition of the Perforacije Festival that brought us here in 2021 in the first place. Today, the site is hardly recognisable at first glance. It has grown into a colourful community. The original containers homes for earthquake victims extended into a vertical village, messy but undoubtedly alive. The large metal roof at the entrance – that the villagers affectionately call “the dock” – bears a banner stating its proudly resilient and resourceful community’s mission. Moreover, the villagers have created their own economy – throughout a loose federation of cooperatives based on differing values and styles of governance – in a region largely abandoned in the wake of that devastating 2020 earthquake. They were ahead of us, starting to cope with the climate collapse, defunct infrastructure, and post-job lives. The village, therefore, generates its own electricity, grows its own food, and recycles its water.

Walking around, flashbacks of that first visit come to mind. The Tetris-like layout of the containers. A wooden box placed on white shining gravel, the artificial patch of soil each was awarded for permaculture as if nothing else mattered. The invasive network of security cameras, likely equalling the number of containers (or wooden boxes, for that matter!). The puzzled first settler’s generation, unsure why all of this was rolled out as a “temporary fix” to their cracked and collapsed homes. Our equally puzzled group of artists, brought here to perform something we were not yet aware of. And those white lines, which had appeared just shortly before our scheduled visit.

Was this a peek into a future to come, into a rapidly approaching need for co-habitation, novel forms of the economy? Were we part of a training ground for new communities, carefully but invisibly coached from the control rooms of that camera network? And why we, for all sakes, a bunch from Brussels, Lisbon, Ljubljana, Riga, Rijeka, Skopje, Rotterdam and Belgrade?

The start of that week in 2021 seemed unsuspicious. We’d been brought to Zagreb from various outposts of Europe. Most of us, being young artists – may be too old to be defeated but too young to be rooted. As with many events of such type, we had been kindly hustled into a welcoming dinner. In those days, along with the omnipresent COVID virus anxiety, Zagreb was already suffering the unbearable summer heat, which we managed to defy. Somewhat uncertain why this band was brought together, the first topic opened was what medium we expressed ourselves in. Remarkably, the common denominator appeared to be “stone”. Was it an ironic fact, considering that much of what we would meet that week, while investigating the aftermath of the Zagreb (March 2020) and Banija Region (December 2020) earthquakes were literally piles of stone and brick – shoved around in hot clouds of dust?

In any case, the next day should have been an ample warning that things were not exactly what they seemed to be. A visibly rushed Domino director, the Festival’s organisers, opened the floor, just long enough to give the impression that all was under control. Later that day, and following days, we were time and time again informed that there was no expectation placed on us, no strings attached – nothing to be performed. Maybe only, a local cultural expert mumbled, we could provide a resilience manual or roadmap of sorts. But why would we, who had no attachment to Zagreb or the Banija Region, let alone any insights in post-catastrophe management, be able to help with the “lack of logic and organisation”?

Next on the program was a series of talks and discussions on sustainability, resilience and permaculture. Regarding the topic of discussion, nothing could have been more out of place considering the venue at hand: a modernist space with the air and signage of a desolate airport lounge. Some perverse minds had apparently labelled it “MAMA”, go figure – we should have been warned. In any case, if there was a scheme behind this, red lights should have blinked at us. Still, being so detached, out-of-place, it all seemed to be dressed in normality.

The 2029 Performacije Festival is taking place in and around Petrinja. And now we are brought back to the heart of the Banija Region. It turns no surprise that the festivals support producers are two young locals from nearby Glina. Back in 2021, when thirteen, they volunteered to fix their primary school building in a record two months. A process devised by their schoolmistress, setting an example in community response. Providing at least six hours of normality for kids, of which many lost their homes in the earthquake. Now, working here along with their event production studies, we meet again.

In eight years, Petrinja has become a perplexing landscape. The decision to come to terms with a shrinking and ageing population, informed by two terms of municipalist green-left politics spreading out of Zagreb, has brought in the expertise of ecologists, who have devised an “ecosystem collapse” strategy for the city. The surviving visual elements of the 2020 earthquake stand as eight years ago, and only here and there a new building has been inserted on the terrain. It isn’t easy to picture it without visiting yourself: most of the historic town has been reduced to arcs, gates and outlines of foundations. It now forms a fantastic landscape for the various performances that literally plug into these artifices. It is the materialisation of Superstudio’s Supersurface, a 1970s fundamental architectural act coming to life. Or – another Tetris, just like the container village.

Eight years ago, wedged between the spooky sights of an early de-growth Petrinja in the making and the white lines of the container village, we took to the hills of some rural community. The entrance (or exit – it never became entirely clear, despite our extensive meeting there) was marked by a container, shoved into the village road to function as a checkpoint of sorts. Operated by a volunteer group with a religious background, out here to take care of the ethnically segregated elders, returned refuges of the previous war – and make sure they remained on life support. With their already overdue presence, and funds likely to run out shortly, the village’s “ecosystem” collapse had been on the table for a while.

Now, we hear that the idea of a former real estate agent worked out. The settlement for the remaining elders – made out of local timber and straw panels – certainly helped resolve their social isolation without displacing them once again. While eight years ago, we wondered to whom their land, exchanged to finance the settlement, would go – now it gets clear. In a flash, we recall a quad speeding past the checkpoint, swirling dust into the air from its four wheels. A robust rider on top, not even bothered to glance at us. “The outsider”, we were told then. In ecosystems, the collapse is never far from the next pioneers making their way in, here apparently loud and clear – hardy species are the first to colonize ecosystems that have been disrupted.

That all grounded in Zagreb, during 2021 when our group was assessed following the tour. How had we survived this field lab? A psychotherapist was brought in to put us through several tests of what in hindsight must have been a certification of our resilience to change, trauma – and yes, (eco)system collapse. Her warm smile veiled her professional take on us. We did well – an 83% resilience rate on average. We had been thoroughly re-programmed. The next day, half of our group emerged at Zagreb’s main square giving gently anarchic soap-box statements. The other half had embodied the necessary settler practices, getting in a monotonous drill of handing bricks – yes, the stone again – in a repetitive chain. The seeds of a pioneering community had been successfully inserted.

Still, eight years on, it remains unclear who masterminded the scheme. Maybe it had to do with the 2021 local elections? And how about 2029 being election year again? Just those white lines – they never leave us at ease.

Summerlab Observants
STEALTH.unlimited (Ana Džokić and Marc Neelen) wrote this text on the occasion of the 2021 ACT Summerlab in Zagreb. As independent observants they were invited to participate in the Summerlab, and asked to create a critical reflection, based on the Summerlab’s programme, participating artists and its social and ecological context. The Summerlab programme was organized by ACT-partner Domino and can be found here. 

STEALTH.unlimited is the practice of Ana Džokić and Marc Neelen, based both in Rotterdam and Belgrade. Although initially trained as architects, for over 20 years their work is equally based in the context of contemporary art and culture. ‘We noticed we have some talent at provoking “simmering” spatial issues to get articulated. That is often in a situation where we shake up groups or communities, to get them imagining what their future horizon could be. It has brought us to make debates, workshops, spatial interventions, exhibitions etc. in quite some places. However, it also pushed us to undertake some long-term, rather persistent commitments (> 10 years). They deal with the spaces and spatiality of production and (social) reproduction, so with sustaining our lives in the cities: City in the Making in Rotterdam and Who Builds the City in Belgrade.