Bosnia and Herzegovina

Zenica Trilogy. For the Biennale Arte 2019, Danica Dakić reflects on the poetics of human existence against the background of contemporary post-transition reality in the Bosnian-Herzegovinian city of Zenica while collaborating with some of its protagonists. At one time the symbol of Yugoslav modernist progress, Zenica was left struggling after the Bosnian War (1992-1995). Dakić investigates the heritage of modernity, from Bauhaus to the utopian paradigms of international and Yugoslav socialist modernism. Taking a cue from Walter Gropius’ Total Theatre and extending it to a space for social activation, the three video works dissolve the divisions between stage and audience, the real and the imagined city.