1973, Rijeka. Lives in Zagreb.

Scene for a New Heritage begins with Maljkovic’s visit to a memorial park for victims of the Second World War erected under the communist government of Yugoslavia. The author of the monument, Vojin Bakic, worked on it from 1970 to 1981 and during the communist period all elementary schoolchildren were obliged to visit it. Between September 1991 and August 1995 the memorial park was in the occupied part of the Republic of Croatia and almost completely destroyed. Today it exists as an artifact, a structure without function, except for the grafted transmitters of Croatian television and T-mobile. As the artist explains: ‘I don’t know how I found myself in that place, probably my subconscious directed me because I only know that I stood looking at the monument for a long time. Finally I found a way to escape all these historical facts and the journey of the work started. I found myself in 2045, on the 25th May, following a group of people on a quest for their heritage. Everything suddenly seemed without pressure – history became a fiction and time created a collective amnesia. The people reached the memorial without knowing what or why it was there. They spoke in ganga, a Croatian folk song performed in primitive polyphony revealing a moment of good or bad mood. Their recognition of the forgotten place took a long time and their ignorance made them nervous. It looked as though only their moment could be their heritage’.

Charles Esche

www.davidmaljkovic.net

GARANTİ BUILDING