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Project description

The project Space, Landscape and Territory: Creating Space, Decolonizing Public Space and Marginal Zones builds on the experiences of research work in the projects Decolonial Pilgrimage (2024 – 2025), Grand Tour and Grand Tour II. (2022 – 2024), Autonomous Zone (2023), WithWalls: A Trace in the Landscape or Forgotten Cultural Heritage (2021), led by Josip Zanki and Biomimetics: Nature, Space, Art (2019), led by Ida Blažičko (cf. Zanki 2022b; Zanki 2024; Cullen, Kloos and Zanki 2024; Blažičko 2021). The project also builds on the results of workshops, lectures and seminars Decolonization of Public Space held at the Coordinación Académica en Arte, Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí (San Luis Potosí, 2022), Vytautas Magnus University (Kaunas, 2023 – 2024), Universidad Nacional de Colombia Sede Bogotá (Bogotá, 2023), Academy of Fine Arts University of Zagreb (2024 – 2025) and Sapienza University of Rome (2025). The project will be implemented in cooperation with the Department of Anthropology and Ethnology of the University of Zadar, Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas and Sapienza University in Rome. The project includes three thematic units. The first refers to the creation of space, the inscription of meaning in space and the transformation of nature/landscape through spatial interventions. The second opens the problem of decolonization of public space, while the third explores zones of marginality, autonomous zones, hegemony in space and territoriality. The objectives of the project are: to create new forms of artistic and scientific research practices and spatial interventions (strategic goals 1. raising scientific excellence, 2. strengthening cooperation with the economy and the development of national and regional identity and culture); to detect works of art in public space and zones of marginality created on the basis of colonial hegemony as well as ethnic, gender and cultural stereotypes; through workshops and lectures, find possible new interpretations and recontextualizations of space (strategic goal 1. raising scientific excellence); shape new participatory forms of artistic activity (strategic goal 4. strengthening social responsibility); collect field material and design visual essays, works of art and professional papers that will critically redefine space (strategic goals 1. raising scientific excellence, 2. strengthening cooperation with the economy and the development of national and regional identity and culture); using the principle of horizontal learning and teaching, create new forms of artistic and educational practices (strategic goal 3. increasing the relevance, quality and efficiency of studying). The theoretical starting point of this project is Lefebvre's concept of the representation of space or conceptualized space – the space of scientists, planners, technocrats, social engineers and artists, all those who determine what is lived, what is perceived and what is imagined. According to Lefebvre, it is the dominant space in every society or the way it is created (cf. Lefebvre 1991: 8–9). The project also draws on Ingold's idea of the landscape as a place in which the forms of culture and landscape as a culturalized space are encoded (Ingold 2000: 21, 57) and on the reading of space as anthropocentric (Ibañez 2019: 7). Public space, in turn, is defined as the shared space of social stakeholders. This space is the living tissue of the politics of memory, the instrument of ethnic, political, religious, gender and cultural determinations. The totality of space is ultimately not only made up  of representation and physical space (cf. Zanki 2022a). Starting from the epistemology of Soy's third space (cf. Soja 1996), we read space synchronically, from the Renaissance Eurocentric view, romantic dreams  , to the achieved individual utopias and temporary autonomous zones.  The process of decolonization is observed not only as an awareness of the colonial subject about the remnants of colonialist hegemony in colonial and postcolonial society (cf. Chakravotry Spivak 1999; Bhabha 1994), but as a process through which artistic and activist activity transforms space, returning it not to its old state, but giving it new qualities. In this project, we refer precisely to strategies that start from such assumptions; Cercle d'Art des Travailleurs de Plantation Congolaise (CATPC, an art collective founded in 2014), Congolese plantation workers who, by selling their artworks, buy the territory of the former sacred forest (cf. Khalidi, Sarroff, Martens and CATPC 2024), and the Italian anthropologist and curator Giorgio de Finis who, through the project of the MAAM museum, opened in 2012, managed to preserve the living space for the more than 600 migrants and homeless people who illegally occupied the former Fiorucci meat processing factory in Rome, thus turning a zone of marginality into an autonomous zone (cf. de Finis 2022; Durut 2024; Pisker  2017; Ricci 2023). It is also important to note that, based on the work of the research team so far, the concept of decolonization is viewed differently in Latin America and differently in Eastern Europe and Croatia. In the research work so far, the members of the research team have insisted on critical reading and innovative interpretations of space, both the nature and landscape itself, as well as urban/public space. The methodology of work in this project will be based on artistic-research, ethnographic and autoethnographic procedures (Foster 1995: 305–306), interdisciplinary strategies and collaborations with local stakeholders.

The first thematic unit (Work Packages 2 and 5) consists of: artistic  research based on field work, drywall workshops and the creation of spatial and land art interventions in the bay of Veli Zaton on the island of Pag (see Lippard 1997; Beardsley 1998; Benyus 2002) and scientific research of the artistic process and the impact of works of art on the community. The interventions will be created by students of the Academy of Fine Arts under the mentorship of Ida Blažičko, Josip Zanki and other members of the research group, one invited artist and local drywall masters. The students and professors of the Academy of Fine Arts will be accompanied by students of the Department of Ethnology and Anthropology of the University of Zadar under the mentorship of Professor Tomislav Oroz. The interventions will be created in the traditional drywall technique, non-invasively, incorporated into the existing landscape, into walls and other drywall structures and exclusively from the material found at the site itself. The focus of this part of the project will be on the integration of the art of Croatian drywall construction into the existing curricula of the Academy of Fine Arts (subjects: Sculpture, Biomimetics: Nature, Space, Art, Cultural Science, Anthropology of Art in Public Space) and the creation of a new elective course Spatial Interventions. Starting from environmental awareness, the uniqueness of the landscape of Pag will be taken into account and environmental associations and activists on the island will be cooperated with environmental associations and activists on the island in the preservation of the Veli Zaton site. The results of this thematic unit will be: spatial and land art interventions (cf. Blažičko 2023), research reports, professional and scientific texts combined into a thematic and final monograph, part of the exhibition within the annual and final exhibition, documentation within the virtual archive and the implementation of the acquired knowledge in teaching.

The second thematic unit (Work Packages 3 and 5) consists of: artistic research based on field work, workshops and lectures on the decolonization of public space, the creation of sculptures, objects, interventions, and painting and graphic works in the function of spatial decolonizers and scientific research of the decolonization process. Students of the Academy of Fine Arts and students of New Media from the Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, as well as professors of the Academy of Fine Arts, under the mentorship of Ivan Fijolić, Josip Zanki, Petra Šarin and Rimantas Plungė, will detect works of art in public space created on the basis of colonial perception as well as ethnic, gender and cultural stereotypes in the space of Croatia and Lithuania (cf. Chakravotry Spivak 1999; Bhabha 1994). Also, through workshops and lectures, they will find possible new interpretations that include solutions for displacement, recontextualization of these works or the creation of completely new works of art. In the practical part of the research process, the creation of sculptures will be mentored by Ivan Fijolić, the creation of paintings by Tomislav Buntak and Fedor Fischer, the creation of graphic works in the format of a graphic folder by Maja Rožman and the creation of visual essays with the help of AI by Rimantas Plungė and Josip Zanki. An important part of this part of the project will also be the digital transition, and students will shape their research and proposals for decolonization with the help of AI. The focus of this part of the project will also be on the integration of results into the existing curricula of the Academy of Fine Arts and Military Museums (subjects: Sculpture, Painting, Graphics, Cultural Studies, Anthropology of Art in Public Space, Decolonization of Public Space) and the design of a new elective course Decolonization of Public Space at the Academy of Fine Arts. The results of this thematic unit will be: sculptures, installations and objects, visual essays,  paintings and a graphic folder, research reports, professional and scientific texts combined into a thematic and final monograph, part of the exhibition within the annual and final exhibition, documentation within the virtual archive and implementation of the acquired knowledge in teaching.

The third thematic unit (Work Packages 4 and 5) consists of: artistic and scientific research of marginality zones, autonomous zones (cf. Bey 1985) and zones of hegemony (cf. Foucault 1986) based on fieldwork, workshops and art projects in minority communities within the mentioned zones in Zagreb (Dubrava), Pula (Rojc Center), Mostar (Bulevar) and Rome (4stelle Hotel and MAAM).  Students and professors of the Academy of Fine Arts and the Faculty of Medicine and Psychology of the Sapienza  University in Rome, under the mentorship of Josip Zanki, Ida Loher, Ivan Fijolić and Osvaldo Costantini will explore the zones of marginality in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Italy (cf. de Finis 2022; Durut 2024; Pisker  2017; Ricci 2023), autonomous zones and zones of hegemony – places of transformation of space into territory (places of historical trauma) and conduct workshops. Together with the minority communities living in these spaces, community art projects will be created as a form of multiple artistic temporality (cf. Oroz 2022). The artistic part of this thematic unit will include forms of socially engaged art practice, street art, murals and performative actions. The scientific part will be mentored by Osvaldo Costantini, starting from the interdisciplinarity and collaboration of the student of the Academy of Fine Arts, the student of Sapienza and members of the community under study. The focus of this part of the project will also be on the integration of the results into the existing curricula of the Academy of Fine Arts and Sapienza (subjects: Painting, Graphics, Cultural Science, Anthropology of Art in Public Space and Psicologia e processi sociali) and the design of a new elective course Art in the Community at the Academy of Fine Arts.  The results of this thematic unit will be: socially engaged art projects, street art, murals, visual essays, research reports, professional and scientific texts combined into a thematic and final monograph, part of the exhibition within the annual and final exhibition, documentation within the virtual archive and implementation of the acquired knowledge in teaching. The results of all three thematic units will be consolidated in annual exhibitions, the final exhibition and the virtual archive and will be presented and analyzed in a professional monograph of the entire project and research reports (Work Package 5). In addition to professors, members of the research team and associates, students of all study groups of bachelor's and graduate studies and doctoral students of the Academy of Fine Arts will participate in the project.

Literature

  • Bey, Hakim (1985), T.A.Z.: The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism, Accessed 15 January 2024.
  • Beardsley, John (1998), Earthworks and Beyond: Contemporary Art in the Landscape, New York: Abbeville Press.
  • Benyus, Janine M. (2002), Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature, New York: Harper Perennial.
  • Bhabha, Homi K. (1994), The Location of Culture, London, New York: Routledge.
  • Blažičko, Ida (2021), "Biomimetics: Nature, Space, Art", in Z. Jembrih (ed.), Land art, Earth art, Earth works: Earth and the Anthropocene I–II, Zagreb: Academy of Fine Arts, University of Zagreb, pp. 33–51.
  • Blažičko, Ida (2023), Biomimetics and Art, Zagreb: Academy of Fine Arts.
  • Chakravotry Spivak, Gayatri (1999), A Critique of Postcolonial Reason. Toward a History of Vanishing Present, Cambridge, Massachusetts – London, England: Harvard University Press.
  • Cullen, Mark, Luise Kloos and Josip Zanki, eds., (2024.b), Traces in the Landscape: Stone Desert, Alps and Atlantic Shore, Croatian Association of Fine Artists, Zagreb.
  • De Finis, Giorgio (2022), "Dove abita l'altro e l'altrove", in G. D. Finis (ed.), Il museo abitato di Metropoliz, Roma: Bordeaux, pp. 11–13.
  • Durut, Nikolina (2024), "The Life and Death of Defunct Factories: Contemporary Art Practices and the Revitalization of Abandoned Industrial Plants on the Example of the Fiorucci Factory in Rome", Master's thesis, Zadar: University of Zadar.
  • Foster, H. (1995), "The Artist as Ethnographer?", in G. E. Marcus and F. R Myers (eds.), The Traffic in Culture. Refiguring Art and Anthropology, Berkley – Los Angelos – London: University of California Press, p. 302–309.
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  • Ingold, Tim (2000), The Perception of the Environment. Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling and Skill, London and New York: Routledge.
  • Khalidi, Hicham, Amanda Sarroff, Renzo Martens and CATPC (2024), "Art or Earth? The International Celebration of Blasphemy and the Sacred", in M. Vermeire (ed.), The International Celebration of Blasphemy and Sacred, Amsterdam: Modriaan Fund, p. 10–18.
  • Lefebvre, Henri (1991), The Production of Space, Oxford UK – Cambridge USA: Blackwell.
  • Lippard, Lucy R. (1997), The Lure of the Local: Senses of Place in a Multicentered Society, New York: The New Press.
  • Oroz, Tomislav (2022), "Multiple Island Temporalities: 'Island Time' and the Spatialisation of Slowness on the Dalmatian Island of Dugi otok", Narodna umetnost: hrvatski časopis za etnologiju i folkloristiku, 59, no. 2:9–38.
  • Pisker, Lidija (2017), "From salami to art: how migrants helped turn Rome factory into a gallery", Accessed 15 January 2024.
  • Ricci, Alessandro, director (2023), Roma, gli abitanti del museo abitato aspettano una soluzione: 'Lo sgombero? Noi non ce ne andiamo', Accessed 25 September 2024.
  • Soybeans, Edward W. (1996), Thirdspace. Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-and-Imagined Places, Cambridge, Massachusetts – Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
  • Zanki, Josip (2022a), Conceptualization of Space in Thangka Painting and Contemporary Art Practices, Zagreb: Academy of Fine Arts, Cultural Information Centre, Jesenski and Turk Publishing House.
  • Zanki, Josip, ed. (2022b), Grand Tour. Peregrinaje Poscolonial y era de las pirámides, Zagreb: Academy of Fine Arts, University of Zagreb.
  • Zanki, Josip, ed. (2024), Grand Tour II, Zagreb: Academy of Fine Arts, University of Zagreb.