Programme
Jaka Primorac
Croatia
TRAM GALLERY
urban intervention
8 September - 8 October 2006
one of the city trams
During the UrbanFestival, the author exhibits photographs with urban contents at the places of commercials in trams, thus questioning the suffocation of the public space with advertisements.
The life of the modern man is satiated with commercials. Even going to a public toilet cannot go without ads telling us how to look better or which sanitary towels are better fitting. 
Everyday tram ride in Zagreb has for a longer time now been a good opportunity for advertisers to play their commercial tricks on the public. Not only are we riding in the "Bananko" or "Poli" trams, but we can also read, on the mini-posters above windows, how many vitamins C or E there are in a certain juice, which mobile phone can store more images, etc. Of course, the commercialization of the public space isn't a phenomenon unique for Zagreb, it is a by-product of the globalizing processes and thus present in other towns all over the world. There are lots of projects questioning the exploitation of the (public) space in public transport in the same way. One of the longest-running is a London project entitled "Poems on the Underground" (1986-2006), but there are such projects in Zagreb, as well (the poetry project at the citylights).
Urban landscapes and details from everyday life in the city, captured on these photographs, give visitors the chance to, if only for a few moments (a few tram stops), immerse themselves into the city and the space, and not in the possibility of shopping.
Jaka Primorac was born in Zagreb, in 1977. 
She graduated sociology at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Zagreb, in 2001. In 2003, she got her master's degree, in the field of sociology of culture at the Central European University, Department of Sociology, Warsaw. Her MA was accredited by the Lancaster University, UK. Since 2003, she has been working as a junior researcher at the Department for Culture and Communication of the Zagreb Institute for International Relations. She has been a member of the Fotoklub Zagreb since 2001 and, since 2003, a member of the International Net and the PLOTKI magazine.
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