Dissolving City

The photographic series Dissolving City – Reflections on Absence and Decay follows a motif that runs like a common thread through the cityscape of Tetovo: Emptiness. The city counts numerous beautiful but run-down houses that are overseen or even avoided and, eventually, demolished. At the same time, the cityscape is clearly marked by construction sites that haven’t been touched for a long time. Abandoned buildings characterize a large part of the cityscape. Those houses inhere Absence and Decay at all time. This common threat not only refers to the cityscape, but also its inhabitants; people leave Tetovo steadily – if not physically, then mentally. Many of those who have not yet left, consider leaving. And those who stay because they are very much bound to the city, nostalgically long for the city’s past that is clearly falling apart – as does its architectural remnants of another age.

Dissolving City – Reflections on Absence and Decay was exhibited in 2014 during the Artist Residency of the Goethe-Institut Skopje. The work arose a public debate about urban development in Tetovo, which finally lead to a trilingual publication of the same title, published 2017.

Book launch and public debate at LOJA – Center for Balkan Cooperation, 2017