"Socialist Architecture: The Vanishing Act" is a collaborative project between photographer> Armin Linke and architect Srdjan Jovanovic Weiss. Weiss and Linke have worked together since 2009 to visit and document selected examples of ex-Yugoslav Socialist architecture in order to document the state that they are in today. The Socialist Federation of Yugoslavia vanished during the early 1990s and the former Socialist states were Balkanized into a number of emerging democracies. Each of these new states inherited monuments, buildings, landscapes, and infrastructure, which were constructed specifically for the former Socialist context and needs. After Yugoslavia vanished, most of the inherited architecture was left vacant and in a state of limbo between being repurposed and reused for new content, or simply being declared Socialist archeology, and continuing its life as ruins. By creating documentation, "Socialist Architecture: The Vanishing Act" captures the indecision of five particular emerging democracies today: Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia, and Serbia, and the distinct effects their irresolution creates spatially and visually on former Yugoslav architecture.
Armin Linke (born 1966, lives and works in Berlin) is an artist working with photography, combining different mediums to blur the border between fiction and reality. He builds up an ongoing archive on human activity and the most varied natural and man-made landscapes.
Srdjan Jovanovic Weiss (born 1967 in Subotica, Serbia) is an architect and theorist educated at Harvard University and Belgrade University. He recently collaborated with Herzog & de Meuron architects and is the founder of Normal Architecture Office (NAO) as well as co-founder of School of Missing Studies, network for cultural and urban research. He is a fellow at Forensic Architecture group at Goldsmiths Centre for Research Architecture, London.
