Small Victories

Klelija Zivkovic

Small victories is an archive of stories about the people and the city of Skopje, presented in various ways and through various media, all using personal experience as a document containing unique and irreplaceable data about the city as told in first person by people in the city. 

small victories

In a situation where through a government-run project of urban remodeling, the city in which all of these experiences took place is being replaced and every trace of its existence eliminated, these documents, these small victories can be bigger and more important than ever.Aiming to foster a relationship between known and unknown actors in this process of simultaneously recognizing and creating these small victories, three types of media were set into gear: web, radio and postcards.

The citizen is put into the center of the city’s intimate history, as its creator and its explorer.

By doing so, the archive insists on the importance of these little histories, infinite heterotopias which build an alive and Calvino- esque record of a city, not only by collecting, but also by creating artifacts which offer a tactile history, alongside the oral and written ones. By using personal experience to tell a story about a city, the citizen is put into the center of the city’s intimate history, as its creator and its explorer, hence temporarily shifting the hierarchy introduced through Skopje’s remodeling and counter-balancing the ever-so-present monuments looming over the streets.

Time
Winter 2015
Location
Skopje
Macedonia
Team
Klelija Zivkovic