Art Weekend Belgrade (AWB) 2021: Room 22/Welcome to Our Room: A Soft Oral History of the Hotel Belgrade

  • Tomic-Vajagic, T. (Advisor)
  • Ljudmila Stratimirovic (Organiser)
  • Ann Paenhuysen (Organiser)
  • Lena Melentijević (Contributor)
  • Anika Vajagić (Contributor)

Activity: Public engagement and outreachPerformance Arts/Exhibitions/Festival outside Roehampton

Description

Room 22 : A Soft Oral History of the Hotel Belgrade
is a collaborative dramaturgical/choreographic object play by Tamara Tomić-Vajagić and Lena Melentijević. This room invites participation of the exhibition visitors, who are encouraged to engage with the few known historical artefacts, used in the detective-style diagrams as a choreographic objects. The visitors contribute with their knowledge (oral history, hearsay, memories and gossip) about the lost history of the Hotel Belgrade.
Hotel Belgrade has a long and checkered history, one that is difficult to uncover. There are few surviving official documents, and we know mostly the fragments— the Hotel’s opening was likely in Dec 1937. It was built by Vladimir Djordjević who wanted to contribute with a prestigious, urban hotel for the pre-WWII Yugoslavian modern rail travellers.The Hotel’s socialist-era transition into a nationalised lodging, managed by the National Yugoslav Railways/ Jugoslovenske Železnice, intersects with the history of its surrounding area locally known as “Štajga”—socialist Belgrade’s seedy part of the city, with the sole openly erotic cinema (Partizan). But, what part did the Hotel Beograd play in Štajga’s and the city’s history?
Aiming to find out more about the Hotel’s [un]official history we placed hopes in the bodies and memories of AWB visitors. In the ghost-room 22 collected and displayed visitors' stories, real [or misremembered] anecdotes, and gossip about the Hotel and its Štajga neighbourhood history.

Estimated audience numbers (if applicable)

The free group exhibition, AWB '21, was a success in terms of the visitor interest. The exhibition was extended for five days (initially planned for 5 days, from 20-24th Oct, was extended for one further week, until 31st Oct '21.)
Period20 Oct 202131 Oct 2021
Event titleArt Weekend Belgrade 2021: Hotel Belgrade Edition, KC Grad
Event typeExhibition
LocationBelgrade, SerbiaShow on map
Degree of RecognitionInternational

Keywords

  • Exhibition
  • Choreographic objects
  • Audience participation
  • Knowledge Exchange
  • Visual culture
  • Performance art
  • Investigative aesthetic
  • Serial pinboarding
  • Atmospherics