The exhibition shows Danica Dakić’s series of works Zenica Trilogy as well as the new production Vedo, which has its premiere at the Berliner Herbstsalon 2023.
With Zenica Trilogy Danica Dakić represented Bosnia and Herzegovina at the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019. In her exhibition, she investigates the utopias of the city Zenica (lit. »pupil« of the eye). Not only was Zenica a burgeoning centre of industrialisation in socialist Yugoslavia, it was also an architectural model of a modern metropolis. Since the Bosnian War, it has experienced the downsides of modernity in the form of extreme environmental pollution, unemployment and collective resignation. Together with protagonists from Zenica, Dakić highlights the dreams and scope of action of the individual. Walter Gropius’s »Total Theatre« serves as inspiration for dissolving the boundary between the stage and the audience, between the real and the imagined.
Zenica Trilogy consists of three video works: Čistač/The Cleaner, Zgrada/The Building and Scena/The Stage as well as the graphic portfolio Zenica Mapa/The Portfolio.
The video Vedo from 2023 also speaks of dreams and spaces for action of the individual. In an endless loop, one hears a song from the Second World War known in the former Yugoslavia, Through forests and over mountains. The song, written during the Russian Civil War, spread internationally as the hymn of the partisans. The boy who plays this march on an old accordion between the empty tracks does not move. Only a few trains run at Sarajevo's main station today, international connections have almost ceased. Vedo contrasts the wintry situation with his music like a utopia.
