When we look at Zagreb today, we can read its continuous east-west lines shaped by the hill in the north and the Sava river in the south as a terrain where many struggles materialize.
It is a place of famous underground revolutionary resistance, but also a place of conflict between the powers altering this collective memory through historical revisionism and those trying to honor its history. It is a city that displaced some of its vital functions, such as industry and education, and vehemently displaced thousands of its ethnic-minority citizens by way of two wars, but also a city of persistent workers’ fight and undying antifascist resistance.
During the four days of the conference we aim to pay attention to these struggles across and between different neighborhoods, with their told and untold stories. We will not only listen to the stories from local activists and practitioners, but also take a closer look behind the struggles and see how they have – through success or failure – framed and shaped the city. We will approach the city as a living political body, a community that allows – or doesn’t allow – certain currents to affect its material development and quality of life.
Through guided city tours we aim to tell the story of how Zagreb was formed by its struggles and how they continue to be an essential dimension of its present and future life. Focusing on the lack of public and affordable housing and the neoliberal waterfront and other investments as urgent issues to be addressed and publicly discussed, we will look directly into the eyes of a disturbing future and try to open the front line of yet another struggle.
INURA 2019: City (Un)defeated 