Concretopia is a personal journey through a concrete utopia, combining the double meaning of the word concrete, referring to both the material and the idea – in this case the utopia of the socialist state of the former Yugoslavia revisited through its architecture.
Concretopia aims at exploring the multifaceted legacy of socialist architecture in Belgrade, and it articulates in the diary of a generation that crosses time, space, urban landscapes and a whole political experience.
The architecture in New Belgrade, representing some of the finest brutalist architectural masterworks in ex-Yugoslavia, was supposed to show the power of a state enclosed between two worlds (the West and the East), seeking to physically represent a unique utopian ideal.
I was seeking to represent the point of view of my generation – a generation born in the 70s during the last years of Tito’s reign – that experienced the insouciance of the 80s, the civil wars of the 90s and the collapse of the socialist state in 2000.
I have revisited and recreated parts of my own Concretopia that took place in the spaces where my friends and I used to live, play, fall in love and say goodbye – outlining my personal vision through the synthesis of the aesthetics of the socialist architecture and the vivid memories that chronicle the first 28 years of my life in Yugoslavia. Hence, the entire series contains 28 collages that contrast the current state of Yugoslav urban spaces in Belgrade with personal photographs.
