3. Seasons of Power Seasonsof 3

40 3. Seasons of Power Strategic partnerships Lead Project Hosts: Croatian National Theatre Ivan pl. Zajc ( Artistic Director: Oliver Frljić ) Local: Museum of Modern great European art responds to crisis and Contemporary Art, Art-Kino Croatia, Documenta – Centre for Dealing with the Past, Department of Cultural Studies – University of Rijeka, The experience of being divided has shaped the iden- Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences – Univer- tity of many European cities. The City of Rijeka has sity of Rijeka, Centre for lived a divided history, between the Kingdom of Yugo- Advanced Studies – Univer- sity of Rijeka, City Muse- slavia and the Kingdom of Italy, resulting in a short um of Rijeka, Institute for period as the Free State of Fiume, the irst fascist state. Contemporary Art ( Zagreb ) By 2020 exactly 100 years will have passed. What fol- International: Teatr lowed was a controversial and bloody re-population Wybrzeże ( Gdansk ), NEED Company ( Brussels ), Kaai of Rijeka. This division is still visible in the city’s tis- Theater ( Brussels ), Laibach sue, architecture and conlicting collective memories. – Neue Slowenische Kunst ( Ljubljana ), HAU ( Berlin ), Croatian National Theatre in Rijeka has survived occupation, liberation, monarchies, Mostar, Slovenian National crumbling empires, de-railed socialist experiments. Theatre in Nova Gorica This Flagship delves into the world of totalitarian Supplementary funding regimes, structures of power and fear, transform- sources: Creative Europe – Culture, co-producing ing Rijeka’s spoken and unspoken narratives. European theatres and festivals, European tour incomes for two or more of the co-productions Petar Grabovac, 1950s, courtesy of the City of Rijeka Museum 41 Impulse The second period is the most widespread and visible, as dozens of memory sites across the city Rijeka’s cityscape functions as an urban palimp- and in nearby communities are animated by artistic sest, re-inscribed with new symbolic architecture interventions ( performances, exhibitions, con- and ideological signals with each successive certs, poetry readings, new memorials, plaques and regime, the occupiers or the liberators of this signs, renovated public space ). Seasons of Power port city. Memory sites in Rijeka and its surround- climaxes with four seasons of art, four divided ings mark places of power and resistance which cities on stage, four monumental works by some contribute to the region’s layers of identity. of Europe’s inest theatremakers, during 2020. Rijeka’s history inspires a search for sister cities, places where divisions are still visible Flagship Highlight in the urban landscape, in the surrounding countryside and in the eyes of the people Divided Cities who live there. It also mirrors contemporary Europe, the seasons of hope and sad- Lost populations. Fiume becomes Rije- ness that our continent has experienced. ka. Danzig becomes Gdansk. Mos- tar remains divided. Belfast heals. A city divided for decades, with a border formed by the river Rječina, an example of Four commissioned works by major European cynical political border design. Faced with directors/choreographers/companies, togeth- barbed wire erected throughout Europe, the er with local artists and target community question of borders becomes central and groups. Four places in Rijeka and the region, relevant. The tension cannot be ignored. transformed into powerful encounters with large-scale performing arts. Performing arts setting the standard for European excellence Place and critical thinking, for 2020 and beyond. Many Season of Power actions take place in Four major European directors/companies and around local memoryscapes – buildings ( the create one “season spectacle” each, on a theme D’Anunnzio’s Palace ), memorial sites ( Goli otok, of power in shifting forms through history. Kampor camp on Rab ), museums ( Lipa ), monuments ( Victory monument, Podhum ), military Lead Partner: Croatian National Theatre complexes Sv. Katarina, former barracks of Spanish Ivan pl. Zajc/Rijeka. Engaged directors/writ- Civil War volunteers, currently the university cam- ers: Oskaras Korsunovas ( Vilnius ), Jan Lauw- pus ), glorious remnants ( Tito’s yacht Galeb ) and ers and NEED Company ( Brussels ), Krzysztof lost places where history was oicially forgotten. Warlikowski ( Warsaw ), Stefan Kaegi and Rimini Protokoll ( Berlin ), Goran Stefanovski The series of European co-productions, prepared ( Skopje/Canterbury ), Oliver Frljić ( Rijeka ). for 2018–2019, culminates with four site-speciic spectacles, at specially chosen sites, according to the research and will of the authors. Large scale, Fleet temporary public arenas are constructed for each season, with the support of Rijeka Resource. Memoryscapes To locate, investigate, analyse and re-interpret Action Rijeka’s own history as part of a broader Euro- pean narrative in the twentieth century and not This Flagship has several overlapping merely through narrow ideological prisms of the periods and multiple experiences. past. Mapping memoryscapes, then reinterpret- ing them with artistic interventions – plays, per- We start with background research, drawing formances, exhibitions, concerts, poetry readings, upon projects ( FRAMNAT, EU Remembrance, new memorials, informational plaques and signs, Future Monuments ) and classes ( Compara- renovated public space, museum additions, etc. tive History of Cultural Memory ) already in progress at the University of Rijeka. Potential Lead Partners: Faculty of Humanities and Social memory sites are identiied, research teams Sciences at the University of Rijeka, departments established and cooperation with sites already of Cultural Studies, History, and Art History. in use ( such as museums ) secured. This phase Local: Art-Kino Croatia, Documenta – Centre for draws upon a broad network of international Dealing with the Past, local NGOs. International: academic and civil society partners for con- University of Regensburg, University of Gronin- 42 ferences, workshops and scientiic studies. gen, Central European University ( Budapest ). From the album of Miodrag Šepić, captain of Tito’s yacht Galeb, Remembering Goli Otok and Sveti Grgur Culture of Totalitarianism courtesy of Šepić family Goli Otok and Sveti Grgur are two small islands This corner of the world inevitably revolves in the Adriatic Sea. Their controversial history around two protagonists who marked the 20th began when Yugoslavia was ejected from the century – Gabriele D’Annunzio ( aka the Coman- Cominform in 1948 and severed all ties with dante ) and Josip Broz Tito ( aka the Marshal ). Rijeka the USSR. The islands serving as concentration in a regional/global context, totalitarianism as camps for people accused as sympathisers or a political and cultural phenomenon. D’Annun- spies for the Eastern Bloc. When the prison camp zio occupied Fiume during a short time as a was closed in 1956, it became a detention centre Free City-State ( 1920–24 ), a prologue to Italian for juvenile delinquents, criminals and politi- Fascism. Tito led Yugoslavia until his death. cal prisoners. Today the camp is in ruins. The aim is to signal political traumas still burdening Our encounters with the subject are manifested our society. With art actions on Goli Otok and by multimedia/interactive exhibitions and public Sveti Grgur, we address this complex theme in a gatherings. Particular interest is given to the socially relevant but not politicised way, focusing reconstruction of D’Annunzio’s and Tito’s public on cultural critique and artistic expression. The speeches that evoke important events in Rije- project culminates in 2020 with the launch of a ka. Both were masters of rhetoric and inlamed memorial area, opening of the public exhibition, their public to boiling point; the one a fascist, the theatrical performances, concerts, art workshops. other a communist. Their impact on the course of history was massive, their destinies so diferent. Lead Partners: Association Goli Otok “Ante In Rijeka, these rivers of history are intertwined. Zemljar”, Art De Facto, Zagreb, municipality Lopar i City of Rab. Local: Osijek Centre for Locations: Rijeka City Museum and public spaces. Peace, Non-Violence and Human Rights, Zagreb Civic Committee for Human Rights, Zagreb Cro- Lead Partner: Rijeka City Museum. Local: atian Helsinki Committee, Documenta – Centre Art-Kino Croatia, Centre for Industrial Her- for Dealing with the Past, Zagreb. International: itage, Staro Selo Museum ( Tito’s birthplace ), Slovenian Artistic Collective Laibach ( Ljubljana ), Kumrovec, Museums of Hrvatsko Zagorje, Centre for Cultural Decontamination ( Belgrade ). Gornja Stubica, Croatian History Museum. International: Società di Studi Fiumani ( Rome ), Muzej istorije Jugoslavije ( Belgrade ), Universalmuseum Joanneum ( Graz ). 43 Kompleks Ristić by Oliver Frljić, HNK Ivan pl. Zajc, 2015 90s: Scars Borders/Body/Cities Twenty-ive years after the biggest political, Frontiers in relation to bodies in urban spaces. social and economic shift in our times, we Observing and documenting shapes, symptoms still cope with the consequences. Through and politics of borderlines in diverse European research, publication and an exhibition pro- cities ( Berlin, Gorizia, Mostar, Nicosia ), During ject on visual arts and culture of the 90s, the three years ( 2017–2019 ), archive research is to be project will relate to European and Euro-Asian done in Rijeka and cities included in the project. recent past, collective memory vs. collective The result is to be

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