Poems for the Little Town on Top of the Hill
inkjet on paper, 2021
In 1981 a new building settlement was built on the outskirts of Belgrade, called Cerak Vinogradi. Back then it represented the peak of modern residential architecture. In 2019 the settlement’s plans were included in the exhibition Concrete Utopia at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. After the exhibition ended it was selected for the museum’s permanent collection. As being only one of two works from Serbia that has had the honor of being included in the permanent collection, it was heavily covered and broadcasted by many Serbian news media channels. Although many saw this occurrence as cause for celebration, others decided to share their thoughts on the current living conditions in the celebrated Cerak Vinogradi settlement.
This project is a collection of poems that simultaneously work as a dialogue between the published word of the media and the readers’ voice. The poems are assembled as a collage of verses drawn from the articles covering Cerak Vinogradi’s inclusion in the permanent collection of MoMA as well as the comments made mostly by the current inhabitants of the Cerak Vinogradi settlement.
