Searching for Karolina (!!!)

Submitted by jr on Thu, 08/05/2010 - 00:00


The vision is something like a 'New Ostrava', manifesting itself in built exclamation marks, all promoted by a large scale intrusive city branding campaign. Developers' slogans sounding like: "Erected on the city's prime brownfield site, New Karolina will be the new city centre, a reminder of what we can continue to build on for the future."

But Honza and Ludo, living for years in makeshift tents at the margins of what is and supposed to be, don't seem to care about the excavators, already performing an awkward dance just across the fence. A sign that the vision is already beginning to be imposed, exclamation marks challenging what used to be known just as 'Karolina'. Time was tight, so I went along the fence to search for her. Maybe Karolina wouldn't even want more than just to be...

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The project 'Searching for Karolina (!!!)' is featured on 'radio aporee' and was conducted as part of a research project on urban voids together with Federica Gatta and Giorgos Doganis, under the title 'Ostrava: Narrating the city through its absence'.



Ostrava, Czech Republic
23-04 till 27-04-2010