With Guillermo Arsuaga, Anna Asplind and Orestis Nikolaidis
On 1 November 2017, we curated a guided tour of the Skenderija complex called ‘Replica’ – a tour floating in juxtaposition to the site, engaging in a dialogue with its history, present and future. The definition of replica and its double meaning in Latin languages – both as a ‘copy’ of an original and as a ‘reply’ to a statement or action, was the starting point for our site-specific intervention in Sarajevo. We envisaged the action as a touristic itinerary around Skenderija which would borrow and mimic elements from the apparatus of mass-tourism, mixing them with a sense of being present and guiding visitors through through their own senses so they could create impressions and mental images of their individual journeys.
During the intervention, we borrowed mass tourism’s moronic rituals, fabricated national epics, securitised spaces, mass-management of humans-as-cattle, and one-directional paths to understanding history, and we placed these exaggerated strategies along with an imaginative methodology which we used to describe and guide visitors through space, cultivating a sense of appreciation, curiosity, and discovery. Our narrations and descriptions of the space mixed the history of Skenderija as an Olympic site in the context of Tito’s Yugoslavia with a critique of the contemporary neoliberal star-system of architecture and the commodification of architectural and cultural heritage.
Ultimately, our aim was to visibilise and raise awareness around the abandoned complex of Skenderija and its value, as well as raising questions around global tourism, collectivity and solidarity through critical spatial practice.
Dear visitors, we have now come to the end of our tour.
[Quote] “We guarantee that the next games in Tito’s Yugoslavia, when they come here, will be even better.” Tito Broz, 1984. [End of quote].
See video of tour