8th FLOOR
The exhibition 8th Floor combines the architectural heritage of Zagrebian skyscrapers in the district of Vrbik, popularly known as Rockets, and the introspective insight and visual poetics of photographer Jelena Janković. Vrbik Residential Towers, built in 1968 according to the project of the architectural bureau Centar 51, symbolise the urban development of Zagreb and combine brutalist aesthetics with functional modernist architecture. Even though this heritage is recognised by the wider public today as an influential creation of architect Vjenceslav Richter – hence the moniker Richter’s Skyscrapers – his collaborators on this project were also Berislav Šerbetić, Ljubo Iveta, and Olga Koržinek. Having moved from Belgrade to Zagreb, for a period of eight years Jelena Janković has been recording almost daily the transformation of a seemingly same architectural vista. By observing the changes in light, weather conditions and seasons from the same location – the 8th floor window of a neighbouring building in which she lives, the artist introduces the dimension of time into a fixed public space, whereby she visually explores not only the monumentality of the architectural structure, but also the permeation of spatial and temporal categories with the experience of the freedom of viewing and (self-)reflection.
The photographic cycle is accompanied by the author’s poetic inscriptions with emphasis on the feeling of loneliness caused by moving to a new city. The feeling of isolation and absence, even in the space in which many people dwell, reflects Richter’s thought on the alienation in urban environments in which closeness of the physical space does not necessarily coincide with social closeness.
The exhibition 8th Floor questions the role of architecture in creating personal narratives and manners in which a static, brutalist form such as the Rockets can simultaneously be viewed as a monumental work and as a symbol of personal introspection. The established dialogue between artist Jelena Janković and Vjenceslav Richter's architectural legacy examines the connection between architecture, individual histories and the dynamics of the course of time, documenting the subtle everyday changes which we often fail to notice due to the pace of life.
The project started in 2015 in Zagreb and ended in 2023 when Jelena moved out of the apartment. Each photo is accompanied by a note from a personal diary.
My address is yours
I'm looking at that street
I'm looking at the number
I just feel the scent.
I’m standing
you’re walking
traffic lights are screaming.
The birds are roaring like lions again
It is good.
As long as they roar, all is well.
They have a mane and they are now my queens.
Today is good
We are free
Two views, each inside the returning time. I would delete all the ire, all the thoughts, all the fear. I would be there. I've shared and I gave, without calculations. The time is carrying us.
Just hug me, somewhere far away. Far away from myself.
I look at you every day
I think
I'm laughing at you
You can’t see me
you can’t hear.
You know, I'll be shouting your name again next winter.
You won't hear it
but I will be shouting at the top of my lungs.
Thank you for coming,
for going, for coming again and disappearing.
My day is darkness
darkness is our dawn
then we communicate
with silence
In this beautiful setting of my own sadness, I will perform a special dance. The rhythm dictates the beginning and the end. My end and your beginning. I leave myself and spill on this floor. I dance on myself. I leave all love and hope. I collect things or they collect me, I don't know the answer to that question yet. I know rhythm gives meaning, even to my own nonsense. I’m leaving this space, but without myself. Long time without you. You will never see me again. Maybe you'll recognize me somewhere, by the rhythm. Rhythm is a fucked up thing.
Two views, both in turning back time. I would erase all anger, thoughts, fear, I would be there. She was just in the moment. Shared and gave away, without calculating. Time carries us. Just hug me, there, somewhere, far away. Far from myself.
I can often smell my anxiety.
My crises are on the spectrum of black.
I often go through them like a queen.
I’ve learned to control my darkness.
But always in the wrong direction.
Now if I could choose, I would choose to free myself from myself.
It takes forever to do that.
As children we flew kites, imagining ourselves riding dragons.
When he turned 20 on this day, a dragon came to his floor,
a real,
big dragon,
just the way we always imagined it.
The floor was number 11.
Instead of sitting on the dragon, he let it go,
and himself, too.
They both flew.
Dragon flew up, he flew down.
From this day on, I’ve never looked down again.
My little brother, a field of dragons and some new world, for him.
