Baza, Zagreb, 2016, curated by BLOK

wall drawing and audio-guide

The work Adžijina St 11 User Manual examines the history of the location of BAZA, and it consists of an audio-guide through staircase and a wall drawing, which is the starting and ending point of the tour.

The story told by the audio-guide is a compound of factual data about the building and its history, the memories of tenants and a careful recording of the most obvious, the most ordinary, the most colourless, banal things which continues as long as the place does not become unsafe (G. Perec, Species of Spaces and Other Pieces). The building readily exposes itself, the stories about itself and its tenants, but the visitor, guided by the voice of a guide, remains an alien or even a suspect because he stays too long at a stairwell where he knows no one and where nobody invited him as a guest. He carefully examines the architectural and other details, he gets an insight into the lives of people he doesn’t know. For a moment he becomes part of the invisible structure of relations inside the building, listening to people living on the other side of the door, he enters their shoes and looks at things with their eyes, but he doesn’t enter into any real relationship with them. The area of the stairs becomes a stage on which the visitor moves on the very border of the inner and outer, on the precarious edge which violates the unwritten code of conduct and on which he is not only an audience any more, where it is actually not quite clear who the performer is and where exactly the performance space is situated.

The wall drawing shows the facade, the section, the rear of the building and the layout of the second floor of the building, giving a sort of an anatomical display of its body, age and other characteristics. It is equipped with short texts, a selection of reports of the tenants of the building, about its history and architectural features. Here we do not insist on factographic accuracy in the statements of tenants, but we record the various ways in which they experience the characteristics of the building, as well as the conflicting reports about its history, the year of construction and the former owners. Gathered in one place, they form a parallel body of the building, one that exists in the memory of tenants. This is its hybrid portrait.

photo: Damir Žižić

Rad istražuje povijest lokacije na kojoj je smještena BAZA, a sastoji se od audio-vodiča kroz stubište te zidnog crteža koji je početna i završna točka ture.

Priča koju audio-vodič pripovijeda spoj je faktografskih podataka o zgradi i njezinoj povijesti, sjećanja stanara i pomnog bilježenja najočitijih, najobičnijih, najbezbojnijih, banalnih stvari koje se nastavlja tako dugodok mjesto ne postane nesigurno (G. Perec, Vrste prostora). Zgrada spremno izlaže samu sebe, priče o sebi i svojim stanarima, no posjetitelj, vođen glasom vodiča, ipak ostaje stranac, pa i sumnjivac jer se predugo zadržava na stubištu u kojem nikog ne poznaje i kamo ga nitko nije pozvao u goste. Temeljito razgledava arhitektonske i ostale detalje, dobiva uvid u život ljudi koje ne poznaje. Na trenutak se uključuje i u nevidljivu strukturu odnosa unutar zgrade, sluša o ljudima koji stanuju s druge strane vrata, zauzima njihova gledišta i njihovim očima promatra stvari, ali ipak s njima ne ulazi ni u kakav stvaran odnos. Prostor stubišta tako postaje scena po kojoj se posjetitelj kreće na samoj granici unutarnjeg i vanjskog, po nesigurnom rubu, gdje krši nepisana pravila ponašanja i u kojem više nije samo publika, u kojem zapravo više nije sasvim jasno tko je izvođač i gdje je točno prostor izvedbe.

Zidni crtež prikazuje pročelje, presjek, stražnji dio i tlocrt drugog kata zgrade, poput anatomskog prikaza bavi se njezinim tijelom, starošću i ostalim obilježjima. Pridruženi su mu kratki tekstovi, izbor iz kazivanja stanara o zgradi, o njezinoj povijesti i arhitektonskim karakteristikama. Pritom se ne inzistira na faktografskoj točnosti u izjavama stanara, nego se bilježe različiti načini na koje oni doživljavaju te karakteristike zgrade kao i proturječne predaje o njezinoj povijesti, godini izgradnje i bivšim vlasnicima. Okupljene na jednom mjestu one čine paralelno tijelo zgrade, ono koje postoji u memoriji stanara, one su njezin hibridni portret.

audio-guide:

photo: Damir Žižić