[artinfo] *micropolitics* Differentiated neighbourhoods of New Belgrade

[g-mk | galerija miroslav kraljevic]

Differentiated neighbourhoods of New Belgrade
Project of the Centre for Visual Culture at MoCAB

Monday, 11.01.2010 at 19.00
Galerija Miroslav Kraljevic, Subiceva 29

participants in public discussion: Aleksandar 
Dimitrijevic, Stefan Römer, Helmut Weber
moderator and project presentation: Zoran Eric


The project explores different connotations of 
the term neighbourhood, in the vocabulary of its 
urban, architectural and social contexts, and 
that it analyses the historical development and 
actual dynamics of urban transformations of the 
neighbourhoods of New Belgrade. This sentence 
could be seen as a common denominator and a 
platform for all different approaches to the 
topic developed in the course of more than a 
yearlong process of working within an 
international and interdisciplinary team.
The particular topics that we would like to 
underline as a focal point of the public debate 
are:
- How to build on the local socio-political 
legacy of workers self-management and reaffirm 
this concept in the new context where different 
kind of self-organization would be desirable?
- How to deal with rapid urban transformations 
resulting in socio-spatial homogenisations and 
segregations?
- Is there a possibility for spatial justice in the city neighbourhoods?


On the publication:
The publication Differentiated Neighbourhoods of 
New Belgrade is structured in three parts and is 
accompanied with the DVD with 6 films, 
documentaries or video works produced in the 
framework of the project.
The first part gives overview of the theoretical 
concepts of neighbourhood in different social 
systems, and particularly revisits the concept of 
New Belgrade as administrative capital of 
socialist Yugoslavia and development of its 
neighbourhoods in socialism.
Contributions from: Ljiljana Blagojevic, Mina 
Petrovic, Tamara Maricic & Jasna Petric, Sabine 
Bitter & Helmut Weber.

In the second part the focus is on the process of 
urban transformations in New Belgrade and 
(im)possibilities of avoiding socio-spatial 
segregations and preventing the breaking through 
of neoliberal capitalism into the "empty" spaces 
in the city. The main questions are in what way 
differentiated neighbourhoods could be formed, 
and not shopping malls and business districts, 
and who makes decisions about this?
Contributions from: Mina Petrovic & Vera 
Backovic, Mark Terkessidis, Stefan Roemer, 
Aleksandar Dimitrijevic, Ljiljana Blagojevic, 
Dubravka Sekulic & Dunja Predic & Davor Eres.

The third part shows the "inside view" - 
subcultural, marginalized and segregated 
neighbourhoods and meeting places in New 
Belgrade. The main issue is if there exist the 
sense of belonging to the "hood" and how to 
initiate creation of community or neighbourhood?
Contributions from: Milica Lapcevic & Vladimir 
Sojat, Ljiljana Radosevic, Jakob Kolding, Sanja 
Jovovic, Dusan Cavic & Dusan Saponja, Bik Van der 
Pol, Stevan Vukovic


Projections:
Stefan Römer, Boulevard of Illusions: Learning from New Belgrade, 2007, 24'47''
Sabine Bitter & Helmut Weber, NEW, New Belgrade 1948 - 1986 - 2006, 2007, 20'


Biographies:
Zoran Eric is an art historian, curator, and 
lecturer. He holds a PhD from the Bauhaus 
University in Weimar. Currently he is working as 
curator of the Centre for Visual Culture at the 
Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade. His 
research fields include the meeting points of 
urban geography,
spatio-cultural discourse, and theory of radical 
democracy. Between 2005-2008 he was a member of 
the IKT Board and currently he is the President 
of the AICA Serbia.

Aleksandar Dimitrijevic holds an M.A. at the 
Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade. During a 
long-range stay in Vienna and Cologne he dealt 
with problems of the conflict zone between public 
and private space, and especially with usurpation 
of public city spaces for the purposes of 
advertising. Fom 2000 he deals, in critical way, 
with the phenomenon of social, political and 
cultural transformation of Serbian society after 
the change of the political system and the 
introduction of the country into the process of 
transition and privatization.

Stefan Römer is professor for New Media at the 
Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and works 
conceptually between art practice and theory; his 
works and essays are widely exhibited and 
published. His background is politically 
motivated activism and documentarism with the 
tendency to de-conceptualize traditional 
epistemological canons and dissolve academic 
subjects.
Experimental films: The Analysis of Beauty, 1998; 
Corporate Psycho Ambient, 2003. Documentary film: 
Conceptual Paradise, 2006.
Books: Corporate Psycho Ambient, 2001; Encounters 
with Germans, 2003; «temporary architectures», 
2005; Reports from the Conceptual Paradise, 2007.

Since 1993, Vancouver and Vienna based artists 
Sabine Bitter and Helmut Weber have collaborated 
on projects adressing urban geographies, 
architectural representations and related visual 
politics. Their series of photo- and video-works 
engage with specific moments and cultural logics 
of (neoliberal) globalization, as they are 
materialized in neighbourhoods, architecture and 
everyday life. Since 2004 members of the cultural 
collective Urban Subjects US.

organizers: [BLOK] – Local Base for Culture 
Refreshment & DeLVe | Institute for Duration, 
Location and Variables


[BLOK] 
DeLVe @ G-MK
Ilica 103 | 10 000 Zagreb | HR 		              Šubićeva 29 | 10 000
t. +385 91 2 56 56 56 t. 
+385 1 45 92 696
e. info at urbanfestival.hr			              e. info at g-mk.hr
http://www.mikropolitike.org 
http://www.g-mk.hr


supported by: Ministry of Culture Republic of 
Croatia, City of Zagreb – Office for culture, 
education and sport

Micropolitics lecture series is a part of THE ART 
OF URBAN INTERVENTION, a project by < rotor > 
association for contemporary art/ Graz, 
University of J. E. Purkyne/ Usti nad Labem, 
[BLOK] – Local Base for Culture Refreshment/ 
Zagreb, The Blue House Foundation/ Amsterdam, 
Institute of Contemporary Art/ Sofia and NABA – 
New Academy of Fine Arts/ Milano.

THE ART OF URBAN INTERVENTION is supported by the 
Culture Programme of European Union.