Future Architecture Platform: PUBLISHING ACTS III RIJEKA, 28 – 30 May 2019
Publishing Acts III organized by the Society of Istrian Architects (DAI-SAI), in collaboration with DeltaLab (University of Rijeka) and flagship Sweet & Salt (Rijeka 2020 – European Capital of Culture), was the third edition of an investigation on publishing as an urban practice.
Starting from the official narrative of Rijeka as a multi-ethnic port, a fiercely contested territory that has been changing ruling hands and demographics many times over the centuries, the participants of “Publishing Acts III” came together to re-narrate the city’s past, present and future by questioning, complementing, reassembling and transforming material and immaterial historic and present sources. The publishing process on the one hand functions as a “social choreography” involving a variety of authors with diverse backgrounds and interests, local and foreign perspectives.
The preceding “Publishing Acts” in 2017 were conceived as an experimental editorial workshop with the aim to produce instant, collaborative, open-end socio-political imaginaries about the city of Pula. The resulting publication “Publishing Acts” Pula Documents was only distributed by hand: a performative gesture by which not only a printed product was imparted but also the engagement with the topics it contains. Šibenik Alternating Currents as the second part of the “Publishing Acts” series, a print-on-demand matter of the Šibenik editorial workshop held in 2018, was conceived by Rebekka Kiesewetter and coproduced with dpr-barcelona. “Publishing Acts III” in collaboration with DAI-SAI and DeltaLab continues to pursue publishing as a tool of observation, research and discussion, and produce further publications along the line in which publishing is understood as a processual device evoking and framing a social, relational and discursive space for multi-vocal negotiation, self-reflexive sense-making, and differentiated co-production.
Author of the programme concept was Ana Dana Beroš together with Ida Križaj Leko and Morana Matković, who moderated the activities of the “Publishing Acts III” and ran the workshop. Workshop participants were: Klodiana Millona (Rotterdam), Cam Liu (Rotterdam), Tiago Saraiva (ateliermob, Lisabon), Viktoria Khokhlova (Tyumen/Munich), Mikheil Mikadze (XOPA, Moskva), Oyat Shukurov (XOPA, Moskva), Marko-Luka Zubčić (Rijeka), Rijeka, Leo Kirinčić (Rijeka), Nikola Štefanac (Rijeka), Marin Nižić (Rijeka), Petronela Schredlova, (Bratislava/Rijeka), Andrej Kljun (Rijeka).
Tuesday, 28thof May, 2019
The first day of the “Publishing Acts III” started with morning sessions of presentations at the IVEX post-industrial building, Delta 5, Rijeka. Morana Matković (Sweet & Salt, Rijeka) and Ida Križaj Leko (DeltaLab, Rijeka) gave an overall presentation of the ambitions of the flagship Sweet & Salt within ECOC Rijeka 2020 project and its 19 spatial interventions designed by renown Croatian architects. Afternoon was designated to a citywalk under heavy rain, led by Renato Stanković (DeltaLab, Rijeka). Participants were able to visit all the peculiar places within Delta, and Sweet and Salt area in Rijeka. In the evening, the exhibition opening “Lisbon Acts” was held at the IVEX building, together with the publication presentation “Šibenik Alternating Currents” with the speakers Milan Dinevski (MAO, Ljubljana), Morana Matković (Sweet & Salt, Rijeka) and Ana Dana Beroš (DAI-SAI, Pula).
The “Lisbon Acts” was produced by the Lisbon Architecture Triennale and BINA from Belgrade in 2018, and was on display in Rijeka, Croatia, from 28 May to 7 July 2019. It is showing the last ten years in the city of Lisbon and six architecture studios that have established their companies in Lisbon during that period of time: Aspa, Barbas Lopes, Can Ran, Miguel Marcelino, PLCO and Site Specific. The diverse selection of architectural works (a gigantic tower block, a bar in a garden, an intervention on a river boat station, a meditation centre, a church and a private apartment) is lent to the fictional world of stories of the writer Patrícia Portela in the book Floraennui and in Catarina Botelho’s photographs, Filomena Project, and Pedro Cabeleira’s film, Filomena. Ana Dana Beroš explained at the following launch of the publication “Šibenik Alternating Currents” that the project unites a set of collaboratively produced, open-ended socio-political imaginaries about the Croatian city Šibenik re-narrating its past, present and future. “Publishing Acts”, with the upcoming edition in Rijeka soon to follow, aim to provoke critical reflection on prevailing processes, methods and frames for architectural knowledge production – specifically on architectural publishing – and to open counter-narratives, and counter-spaces, which are not only collectively formable and usable but also able to challenge predominant historical, social, political, and economic protocols.
Wednesday, 29thof May, 2019
The second day of the “Publishing Acts III” continued with participants’ presentations, mixing local and foreign creatives together. The morning programme was accompanied by Milan Dinevski (MAO), and in the afternoon the group was visted by Matevž Čelik (MAO, Ljubljana) and Pedro Gadanho (MAAT, Lisabon).
The afternoon was used for another collective walk, in the vicinity of IVEX building, in the Southern Delta area. Evening hours were dedicated to a new book launch “Consumer Culture Landscapes in Socialist Yugoslavia” presented by its editors Nataša Bodrožić, Lidija Butković Mićin, Saša Šimpraga (Motel Trogir) at the premises of DAR (the Rijeka Society of Architects), Ul. Ivana Dežmana 2/A, Rijeka. With the world’s interest in Yugoslav socialist architecture after the MoMA exhibition “Concrete Utopia” in 2018, the editor of the book further explained that Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia was a unique experiment with progressive social forms that were matched by specific urban and spatial development. Since the end of the 1960’s until the country’s disintegration in the 1990’s there was a period of ambiguity: while according to some researchers, the market-oriented economic reforms brought a much needed opening and liberalization, according to others it marked the beginning of an end of the revolutionary demand for equality.
Thursday, 30thof May, 2019
The morning of the third day of the workshop was dedicated to individual field research. In the afternoon the collective gathered for the “Open Editorial Session”: Presentation/re-representation on possible directions to continue, topics, perspectives, contributions & publishing formats – with invited guests, Gorana Stipeč Brlić (DAR), Nikola Bojić (Institute for Art History, Zagreb) and Idis Turato (Sweet and Salt, DeltaLAb). The mediation process within the exhibition space of “Lisbon Acts” was guided by Ana Dana Beroš and Ida Križaj, using the set of 6 tables as an adaptable stage for the editorial activities, discussing publishing as a tool, a prop or a score for urban scenarios.
An overarching theme of possible futures of the city of Rijeka is put under the working title “Post-Rijekaisms”. The discursive process of editing ideas was put to a stop, to be continued via e-correspondence, while the programme followed at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMSU). The closing event was the presentation of new art installations at the Rječina River conceived by artists Ivana Franke, Tommi Grönlund and Petteri Nisunen, who share an explorative approach, which unites artistic methodology with natural sciences and architecture. Farewell dinner was spontaneously organized at the city’s harbor before parting of the participants on the following day.
PUBLICATION:Publishing Acts III, “Post-Rijekaisms” (working title) will be evolved in the course of the following months, published in a new experimental format by 30thof November 2019, and co-produced with dpr-barcelona.
