VESNA MADŽOSKI (VESNA MADŽOSKI)
Evropska postdiplomska škola, Švajcarska
madzoski@yahoo.com

BEING (A) NEGATIVE: THE SPECTRE OF SOCIALISM IN PHOTOGRAPHIC ARCHIVES
BITI NEGATIV(AN): BAUCI SOCIJALIZMA U FOTOGRAFSKIM ARHIVAMA

Zbornik 19/2023 (Muzej primenjene umetnosti), strana 30-40

Kategorija članka: originalni naučni rad

UDK:
316.728:77
069.5:661(497.11)"2022/2023"

Abstract:
In rare anthropological interpretations of the glass smashing custom in the Balkan Peninsula, it is written that this could be understood as a manner in which one informs his/her environment of transiting to a different state of consciousness. This article analyses, on one side, the questions encountered while working on the exhibition “Fragile: Glass Narratives, Broken Histories” (Public Space With A Roof – Amsterdam and Skver Magazin – Zaječar, December 2022, Museum of Applied Art Belgrade), and on the other the possibility of interpreting socialist history from the fragments found in the former glass and crystal factory “Kristal– Zaječar.” The focus is on the discovery of several hundred rolls of discarded photographic negatives, a key tool of understanding the glass production in Serbia after World War II. In an unusual dialectics, the glass fragments become ‘readable’ thanks to the survived images of the past, while the history narrative created by the found negatives becomes destabilized by this smashed glass. The theory of photo negatives is fragmentary in the history of photography and this article is an attempt to change this. Namely, the potential of negatives to offer different versions of one recorded moment also offers a unique possibility to write versions of history not complying with the official narratives. This way, a new plane of understanding the new post-socialist ‘normality’ is created.

Key words:
Kristal-Zaječar, glass smashing, photo negatives, Walter Benjamin, history of photography

Rezime:
U retkim pokušajima antropološkog tumačenja običaja lomljenja staklenih čaša u kafanama na našim prostorima govori se o postupku informisanja okoline o prelasku u izmenjeno stanje svesti. Ovaj rad bavi se, sa jedne strane, analizom pitanja nastalih tokom istraživanja za izložbu Pazi lomljivo: stakleni narativi, polomljene istorije (Public Space With A Roof – Amsterdam i Skver magazin – Zaječar, održane u Muzeju primenjene umetnosti Beograd, 29. decembar 2022 – 15. januar 2023) i, sa druge strane, mogućnostima čitanja i tumačenja socijalističke prošlosti na osnovu fragmenata pronađenih u nekadašnjoj fabrici Kristal – Zaječar. Posebna pažnja posvećena je otkriću nekoliko stotina rolni fotografskih negativa, sakrivenih u smetlištu nekadašnje fabrike kristala, bez kojih se razumevanje proizvodnje stakla u Srbiji nakon Drugog svetskog rata čini nemogućim. Kroz neobičnu dijalektiku, fragmenti stakla postaju „čitljivi” zahvaljujući preživelim slikama iz prošlosti, dok narativ istorije koju pronađeni negativi stvaraju postaje destabilizovan ovom srčom od kristala. Pored toga, ispostavilo se da su teoretska razmatranja statusa negativa u istoriji fotografije fragmentarna i gotovo nepostojeća, a taj propust ovaj rad želi da ispravi. Naime, potencijal negativa da pruži različite verzije zabeleženog trenutka pruža nam i jedinstvenu mogućnost pisanja verzija istorije koje odstupaju od usvojenih narativa, stvarajući novo polje za razumevanje prelaska u novu, postsocijalističku „normalnost”, o kojoj nam možda govore tone pronađenog razbijenog stakla.

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