"STITCH THE RUIN" by Željka Blakšić: screening in the Nova BAZA window and launch of the artist book
"STITCH THE RUIN" by Željka Blakšić: screening in the Nova BAZA window and launch of the artist book
digitalized 16mm film, 2024
Screening in the Nova BAZA window / Nova cesta 66
March 13 – April 1, 2026. 8 -10 p.m.
Launch of the artist book “Stitch the Ruin” (publisher: OAZA Books, 2026), March 13, 2026, at 7 p.m., Nova BAZA
Participants: the artist, designers Roberta Bratović and Nina Bačun, text author Petra Belc
From 1955, the Nova BAZA window reflected the textile factory Vesna and women workers who would come to work to sew coats, shirts, skirts, and other items, as well as all other women who went there shopping for factory discounts. It also reflected the ruin the factory was slowly turning into, after going bankrupt in 2000, and eventually also excavators, and the transformation of the building into a private residential complex in 2022.
This March, our window will transform into a screen for the experimental film ‘’Stitch the Ruin’’ by the artist Željka Blakšić. At sunset, a microworld made out of stitches, buttons, and threads, will emerge from the glass window, and the moving picture sings, whispers, beats, cuts, sews, recites: Aida, Elastik, Fortuna, Jasna, Knežičanka, Mladost, Olimp, Pionir, Polet, Proleter, Sana, Slava, Sloga, Jadran, Jedinstvo, Košuta, Lenka, Tara, Budućnost, Goričanka, Ivančica, Jadranka, Kninjanka, Kalnik, Kamensko, Kotekst, Ličanka, Ponos, Pobjeda, Pionirka, Šimecki, Sloboda, Vesna…
“Stitch the ruin is a meditation on conceptual, historical, and social questions related to clothing production. On the screen, we see the interaction between details on textiles, mostly collected in Zagreb’s famous flea market Hrelić, and the lists of factories that have closed, many of them named after partisan heroines of the Women’s Antifascist Front. By focusing on details, such as stitches and tags, this film explores knowledge of time and labor, and reflects on the specific industrial structure of feeling, established by the workers in those socialist factories.’’ Željka Blakšić
Screenplay, camera, directing, editing, and production is by Željka Blakšić, and sound design and music is by Željka Blakšić and Igor Lumpert.
Duration: 8’30’’
Production: 2024, Hrvatska / USA.
Technical set up of the intervention in the window: Damir Prizmić
Screening of "Stitch the Ruin" in Trešnjevka is part of the Trešnjevka Neighborhood Museum - Living Heritage program, and is financially supported by the City of Zagreb. BLOK's annual program for 2026 is supported by the “Kultura nova” Foundation.
