INTRODUCTION
URBANFESTIVAL 10 – GORNJI GRAD
UrbanFestival 10 deal with the oldest part of Zagreb, the so-called ‘Upper Town’. Despite the old-fashioned charm it has, and the fact that it’s still within the city center, the area is perceived as passive and deserted, as an unpopular spot everyone tends to avoid in everyday life. Due to the fact that the Croatian governing institutions have their headquarters there, the area is under surveillance and the use of public space is highly controlled. While some of its sites are perceived as monuments of national importance and neatly renovated, others are left to decay. The area functions at the same time as the perfect setting for the construction of the city’s and the nation’s history, and as the place with the longest continuity of everyday life, a place of intimate memories and hidden histories, with many threads of narratives that blur the boundaries between the ficitional and the real, the public and the private.
We perceive Gornji grad (the Upper Town) both as a space of collective myths about the culture and tradition of Zagreb, as well as an intimate space of personal memories and the continuity of everyday life. We want to re-examine what Gornji grad represents for the citizens, its residents and users, and to introduce the process of the “deconstruction of memory“ by blurring the borders between the collective and individual memories. At the place where the romanticized stories we subsequently call “history“ and “heritage“ are constructed, we question that which remains unrevealed and untold. Who determines what we will remember?
Apart from the control of memory, we would like to examine the surveillance of space – the unavoidable problem of Gornji grad. How is the public space controlled, and its use restricted, from the positions of power? What are the possibilities of bringing change/advancement to the location where one can find more members of the police than passers-by, and where, while enjoying the view of the entire city, we are aware that just around the corner we will be observed from a more powerful position – through a security camera?