Željko Badurina, Isak Berbić, Dino Bičanić, Milan Brkić, Ben Cain & Tina Gverović, Nemanja Cvijanović, Marijan Crtalić, Mladen Domazet,  Darko Fritz, Damir Gamulin Gamba & Marcell Mars, Maro Grbić, Marko Golub & Ivana Mance, Nicole Hewitt, Vlatka Horvat, Kažimir Hraste, Ana Hušman, Sanja Iveković, Ivica Jakšić Puko, Juraj Karakaš, Gordan Karabogdan, Nikica Klobučar, Dejan Kljun/DVAZGLOBA,  Siniša Labrović, Tanja Lažetić, Boris Ljubičić, David Maljković, Igor Mandić, Vlado Martek, Jasmina Mitrović, Mileusnić + Serdarević,  Tomislav Pavelić, Snježana Pavičić, Ika Peraić & Mladen Josipović, Vedran Perkov, I.J. Pino, Jakov Poljičak, Boris Popović & Krešimir Zmijanović, Nikolina Pristaš & Goran Sergej Pristaš, Srećko Pulig, Nenad Roban, Bernarda & Davor Silov / Atmosfera, Boris Šincek, Karlo Vranješ, Žarko Violić, Željko Zorica Šiš…

In commemorating the 150th anniversary of the birth of Nikola Tesla, with which the Croatian cultural public ardently demonstrated political correctness and righteousness on the accession path to the European Union, we consider it necessary to move away from universal celebration, and instead of a representation aimed at mythologizing Tesla’s “character and works”, his role and symbolic potential, to look back at what remains unspoken. (…)

Forgetting the problematic and traumatic elements of recent history becomes a constitutive element of the new Croatian national identity. Today’s re-embrace of Tesla by the authorities, and political, cultural and economic establishment takes place against the background of a clear awareness that the results of the military-police action Storm in changing the structure of the population in Croatia are practically irreversible.

Since Hrvatska elektroprivreda (the national energy company) today declares the “year of Tesla”, and advertises itself with posters and video clips with Tesla’s image, therefore the celebration of Tesla’s anniversary and the reception in Croatia (today) would certainly have to take into account the fact that 166 villages with a majority Serbian population in Croatia today do not have electricity. (…)

In contrast to the political rituals that currently surround the discussions on the re-erection of the Tesla monument, in which the monument, with an empty gesture, whose value is exclusively marketing, as part of the process of “normalization” ritually declares unresolved traumatic processes completed, we invite you to send proposals and ideas for a differently conceived monument dedicated to Nikola Tesla, hence contributing to a more productive and complex articulation of suppressed and hushed up social topics in official versions of history.

The digital version of the publication printed on the occasion of the exhibition is available here.