Hamam internacionala follows geographic topi from Debar, Skoplje, Tetovo, Prizren, Peja, Priština, Mostar, Stolac, Sarajevo, Vranje, Niš, Novi Pazar and Belgrade in search of forgotten or repressed narratives of togetherness. Their talk will show us how steam and humidity intertwine private and public, social class, religion and everyday politics. The hamam domes create informal spaces of dialogue and city life – water agoras of body and community. Today, caught in a nexus of restauration, neglect and privatization, they mirror society’s relationship to heritage and the common good. The speakers will take us on a journey with them and end by asking how this architecture can once again be seen as a public space of encounter, exchange and collective breathing.

Siniša Ilić (visual artist) and Bojan Đorđev (theatre director and writer), both born in Belgrade in 1977, have collaborated more than twenty-five years on projects connecting performing arts, visual arts, theory and curatorial practices, exploring collective work, public space and common heritage. Their works take the form of exhibitions, performative installations, lecture-performances, workshops and theater productions.

Bojan Đorđev is a theatre director and artist from Belgrade. In his work he develops public, performative and often participative formats to engage in complex theoretical and political issues. In the past thirteen years he has developed his own research methodology through performance, examining the way in which the collective is imagined, organized and embodied. He has used Marxist texts as materials for performances, and he has observed Yugoslav monuments, socialist mosaics and ruins of Ottoman hammams as documents to be deciphered and as scores to be played. His works include theater performances, lecture-performances, dinners, forums, collective readings and socializing, with the audience involved as co-author and active participant.

Siniša Ilić is a visual artist who combines drawings and art on paper with installation, video and performance. He is interested in social phenomena and mechanisms, and he examines forms of labor, social tensions, violence and instable situations, as well as cultural heritage, while searching for new ways to nurture friendship and solidarity. He often approaches his topics from a historical perspective, researching how past seeps through the cracks of present and how the relation between past and present moment is established. Ilić explores forms of collective labor and designs performing spaces. His works have been exhibited in MAXXI in Rome, Tate Modern in London, Gallery Nova in Zagreb, CZKD in Belgrade, Centre Pompidou and Kadist in Paris, Kunsthalle Wien in Vienna, gallery Musée d’art contemporain de Lyon, the National Gallery in Prague and in museums of contemporary art in Belgrade, Zagreb, Ljubljana, Rijeka and Podgorica, among others.

Co-organizers: What, How and for Whom / WHW and Scena Ribnjak – Ribnjak O’regional

The program is supported by:
City of Zagreb Office for Culture and Civil Society
Kultura Nova Foundation