Lecture and discussion with Nataša Bodrožić and Z. Blace
@ Institut für Kunst im Kontext

Children’s Health Resort Krvavica, built in the 1960s on the Adriatic coast near Split, is a masterpiece of late modernist socialist architecture, as well as a material trace of a society that provided just and fair social and healthcare systems. Protected as a historical landmark, the complex has been gradually decaying since the early 2000s, as it has fallen victim to the devastating policies of commercialization and privatization of socialist commons, particularly along the coastline in densely developed tourist areas. However, as a structural framework of collective memory, the Children’s Health Resort became the setting for a multifaceted, grassroots civic initiative dedicated to reimagining the site, with the public interests of the local community at its core.

The lecture will include a brief presentation of the book and exhibition documenting civic efforts to revive the site over the last decade. It will focus on the formation of a dispersed community united around the fragile materiality of a building that has become a symbol of the struggle for public space and the commons in Croatia. This community involves a wide range of actors, including residents, local and regional activists, a community of architects and artists, and others. What potentials arise from creating new narratives through the collective action of multiple, parallel initiatives? In doing so, might the building itself return to "function"? The questions of what "ruin" and "function" truly mean in this context will be discussed, exploring diverse approaches to revitalization of neglected commons.

Two books have been published so far about the Children’s Health Resort Krvavica. (DIS)TRUST THE STORYTELLER. THE CASE OF KRVAVICA CHILDREN’S HEALTH RESORT (Set Margins’, 2024) recounts the history of the site, accentuating the (re)articulation of recent social and personal narratives. The second book, PLANET KRVAVICA (DAI-SAI, dpr-barcelona, 2026), focuses on uneven legacies, spatial neglect, and fragile gestures of care intersecting with broader planetary concerns.

About the lecturers:

Nataša Bodrožić is a curator, cultural worker, and modernist heritage activist. She is the initiator and co-founder of the Motel Trogir project, which focuses on the critical reevaluation and protection of 20th-century modernist socialist architecture. She is also the co-founder of the Slobodne veze Association for Contemporary Art Practices and has curated numerous exhibitions and projects in public spaces. She has also co-curated two contemporary art biennials: MEDITERRANEA 16: ERRORS ALLOWED in Ancona in 2013 and OSTRALE O21: BREATHTURN in Dresden in 2021. She has co-edited several books: Politics of Feelings/Economies of Love (Onomatopee, 2014); SPACES: Cultural Public Sphere in Armenia, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine (Bibliothek der Provinz, 2014); Motel Trogir: It Is Not Future That Always Comes After (Onomatopee, 2016), Consumer Culture Landscapes in Socialist Yugoslavia (Onomatopee, 2018), and (Dis)trust the Storyteller. The Case of Krvavica Children’s Health Resort (Set Margins, 2024).

Z. Blace (Željko Blaće) – artist, activist, researcher, community organizer and cultural worker active in advocating open, shared and free digital resources. Z. exhibited, produced, published, curated, edited, judged, organized and educated, but mostly looks forward to informing, inspiring and empowering vulnerable individuals/groups and growing solidarity among communities.  Z. deals with the tensions between systems of normalization and queer experiences (discrimination and emancipation) in different contexts from new technologies, media, culture and art to the fields of education, sports and social innovation. https://monoskop.org/Z._Blace Z. will present mediation of Krvavica context from different perspectives produced online using found material of different actors and positions including diverse infrastructures but centering Wikimedia. On May 16-17 at WikiBä Berlin, Z. will organize a WikiBrunch Berlin session for hands-on p2p skill sharing http://queer.WikiSpore.org (contact email: zblace@qom.uni.st)
 

https://www.setmargins.press/books/distrust-the-storyteller/

https://linalibrary.com/planet-krvavica-surveying-local-futures-through-practices-of-imperfect-care/