Marjetica Potrč on Participatory Architecture and Social Space in Post-Conflict Societies

In a January 2014 interview, artist and professor Marjetica Potrč discussed her interdisciplinary practice focused on social architecture and participatory design. Based in Ljubljana and Berlin, Potrč engages in on-site projects, architectural case studies, and drawing narratives. She described a 2013 project in Belgrade's Savamala neighborhood where her students from Hamburg's University of Fine Arts (HFBK) collaborated with residents to create Studio KM8, a knowledge-sharing space, and Župa, a community center on an old boat. Potrč outlined a four-step participatory process: listening, involving the community in decisions and construction, and co-creating sustainable projects. She critiqued the term "public space" as corrupted, preferring community spaces like gardens as political schoolrooms. Reflecting on her 2006 participation in The Lost Highway Expedition through nine Western Balkan cities, she analyzed decorated houses in Tirana and Prishtina as expressions of new citizenship and societal fragmentation post-socialism. Potrč received the Hugo Boss Prize in 2000 and a Vera List Center fellowship in 2007. Her work has been shown at the São Paulo and Venice biennials. She views the artist's role as a mediator, using art as a tool to change culture.