Photographic Projects Reinterpret Yugoslav Modernist Ruins as Sites of Political Memory

Boris Kralj's 2011 photo-diary My Belgrade documents fading socialist-era structures in Belgrade, framing them as anchors for a diasporic and queer Yugoslav identity. Dubravka Ugrešić and Davor Konjikušić's 2020 photo-essay There's Nothing Here! examines ruins of anti-fascist monuments, presenting them as voids that silence histories of ethno-nationalist violence in EU borderlands. Both photographic works position architectural photography as a contextual practice that imbues postsocialist ruins with affective and oppositional meanings. These contemporary projects serve as counterpoints to MoMA's 2019 exhibition Toward a Concrete Utopia: Architecture in Yugoslavia, 1948–1980, which brought Yugoslav socialist modernism to international attention. Vladislav Beronja's analysis, published in ARTMargins on March 15, 2023, explores how these images transform architectural remnants into politically charged sites of collective nostalgia and mourning. The article appears in ARTMargins Volume 12, Issue 1, pages 51-72, with DOI 10.1162/artm_a_00337. Content is subscription-only through MIT Press.