What happens when we begin to listen to a neighbourhood?
The sound walk created in Cvjetno Naselje interweaves stories, memories, scenes and facts, as well as sounds and music, guiding listeners and walkers through the space and time of a single neighbourhood. The walk emerged from an encounter between the author and the neighbourhood, between present and past, between architecture and the life that unfolds within it. Over the course of months spent in conversation with residents and wandering through Cvjetno Naselje, the author gathered fragments of everyday life: stories of childhoods, gardens and playgrounds, of floods, students, the smells of kitchens, and the sounds that shape the life of the neighbourhood. The sound walk leads participants through a space that is both real and imagined. As they walk, listeners enter a layered map of the place, one in which architectural lines meet personal memories, and the past occasionally appears within the scene of the present.
“Archival research narrated through a walk, a chronology of how Cvjetno Naselje has weathered decades of regime and systemic change, demonstrates that events cannot truly be avoided, no matter how small your neighbourhood may be. This is perhaps the most powerful aspect of the work: a reminder to listeners that we are always participating in history, in one way or another, and that there is no escape from our entanglement.”(from the text The Key of Cvjetno naselje by Lana Pukanić)
The sound walk was created in collaboration with the residents of Cvjetno Naselje and produced by the organisation KONTEJNER, which found its home in this neighbourhood in 2023. Arriving in Cvjetno opened up an opportunity to get to know the neighbourhood from within, through conversations, walking, and attentive listening.
This work was commissioned and produced by KONTEJNER as part of the project New Perspectives for Action within the Re-Imagine Europe network, co-funded by the European Union, as well as within the collaborative project Nezavisno Trnje by the Association for the Development of Culture "URK", Pogon – Zagreb Centre for Independent Culture and Youth, and KONTEJNER.
Author and narrator: Hrvoslava Brkušić
Curator: Davorka Begović
Recording, sound editing and mastering: Hrvoje Nikšić
English translation and narrator of the English version: William Linn
Authors of the composition recorded at the children’s playground: Hrvoslava Brkušić and Miro Manojlović
Authors of the electronic composition Kockica: Hrvoslava Brkušić and Hrvoje Nikšić
Author of the text The Key of Cvjetno Naselje: Lana Pukanić
Hrvoslava Brkušić (HR) graduated in Film and Television Editing from the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb and holds a Master’s degree from the Department of New Media at the Academy of Fine Arts. In her artistic practice, she works across sound installations, live performance, film and video. She has presented her work at various events and festivals, including Izlog suvremenog zvuka, the Music Biennale Zagreb, and the 25 FPS Festival in Croatia, as well as internationally in Italy, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Spain, Poland, Lithuania, Austria, and elsewhere. She has edited a number of films screened at festivals such as the International Film Festival Rotterdam, IDFA Amsterdam, CPH:DOX, Sarajevo Film Festival, 25 FPS, the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, and many others. Through her work on film education projects in Senegal, Burkina Faso and Palestine, she has engaged with questions of access, representation, and erased narratives in local film archives, which has led her towards artistic research into the colonial gaze and archival presence. As an educator, she teaches at the Restart Documentary Film School and the Academy of Fine Arts, and is part of the team running the film laboratory Klubvizija in Zagreb.
