Botanicus, 2020

The imaginary theatre play Betonicus is inspired by the fact that architectural neo-style elements imitate styles of the past. Betonicus is the concrete neo-antique column permanently installed in an illegally built tourist apartment. He dreams about being the ancient original column that was erected by emperor Diocletian himself. Plasticus, a character that plays the role of a plastic door, represents a small-scale but widespread and harmful element often incorporated into cultural heritage. The Peristyle, the central square of Diocletian’s Palace in Split, is conceived as the location of the play’s premiere, as shown in the set design scale model.

Photography, costume, architectural scale model, text 

Technical associate: Goran Radošević 

CHARACTERS:

BETONICUS, a cement column of the neo-Corinthian variety

PLASTICUS, a PVC door

ACT ONE

Concrete suburbia. Over-built. An apartment building. 

Unplastered, yet magnificently decorated in antique fashion. 

Illegally built, but subsequently legalised. 

SCENE ONE

BETONICUS (alone, in thought, motionlessly supporting a double arch) 

What is the suffering of Sisyphus, 

What the torment of Tantalus! 

From cement have I been poured, 

In gold and silver stained, 

Forever under concrete arches placed.  

In a dream, again, the same images appeared: 

Had I only in marble been carved, 

Had I on the Peristyle been placed, 

By Diocletian’s hand I’d have been caressed. 

Alas, sweet dreams were interrupted by reality, 

And a concrete fate had befallen me! 

The Gods have not explained such iniquity,

Why make stairs of marble instead of me?

Sunny Side, 2018

The modernist Zora Hotel, complete with a futuristic swimming pool dome, designed by Lovro Perković, was built in Primošten in the 1960s. Thanks to its 1971 tourist advertisement featuring Orson Welles and Oja Kodar in front of the Zora Hotel, its spaceship-like dome was inserted into the world of 60s sci-fi movies. The pool was converted into a spaceship, while the Yugoslav advertising slogan “Come and See the Truth” – used to invite foreign citizens to experience the “sunny side of socialism” – became the slogan for the space-faring mission named Sunny Side. Oja Kodar contributed to this project with her poetic letter and the information that Welles, in his unfinished film Don Quixote, had planned to turn Primošten’s dome into a spaceship that would take Don Quixote and Sancho Panza to the Moon.

Photography, costume, architectural scale model, video, text 

Technical associates: Goran Radošević, Zoran Stojićević

Façade, 2018

In 1931, at the Beaux-Arts Ball in New York, famous architects dressed up as buildings they had designed, celebrating the present and future of architecture in the midst of the Great Depression. As a tribute to this event, I made my own version of an architectural costume referencing the amateurish and often illegally built private homes found in Dalmatia. These houses are often  flamboyant, abounding in faux-historical decorative elements and boasting plastic window and door frames. Enveloped in my role of façade – that is, the thin boundary between the private and public spaces – I sometimes domineer over the untouched nature that surrounds me and sometimes attempt to fit into the already-built architectural landscape.

Performative photography, costume 

Technical associates: Goran Radošević, Zoran Stojićević

Black Hill, 2015

In 2010, approximately 140,000 tonnes of potentially hazardous waste from the former Electrode and Ferroalloy Factory (TEF) in Šibenik was dumped in the village of Biljane Donje. Imagining the black slag heaps as the surface of an unknown planet, this project deals with the impact that this artificial and dangerous postindustrial landscape has on both the village and its residents. The costume used in the photo series is an interpretation of traditional folk attire, while the mask represents apotropaic properties for protection against the threatening landscape. The costume is covered in a local embroidery pattern (četverokuka) symbolising hope and protection.

Performative photography, costume, sound recording (interview with Živko Ševo, Biljane Donje, https://vimeo.com/126737005)

Technical associates: Goran Radošević, Zoran Stojićević, Duška Stojićević