Urboglyphs – Urbotheque

Trnje in film, Trnje on film, Trnje through film, Trnje and film¹

“Urboglyphs – Urbotheque” is a creative and imaginative continuation of the project “Urboglyphs – Multiplying the City,” which took place in Zagreb’s Lower Town district from October 2023 to May 2024. This new cycle takes a bold step forward in rethinking the city and cohabitation through micro-actions, professional trainings, thematic walks, and a hunt for images and sounds of Trnje.

Beginning in September 2024, we initiated research and dialogues with local associations, institutions, city libraries, the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb, and prominent individuals. The culmination of this phase is set for April, May, and June 2025, with a focused exploration of the Trnje district.

On Urboglyphs

Urboglyphs [from urbs (Latin: city) + glyphē (Greek: engraving)] are symbolic and spatial accumulations of signs and meanings inscribed through multiple layers of events in a single urban location. They serve as a means of reading the city’s collective memory, reconstructing the intangible cultural and political heritage of urban space.²

Our activities unfold through participatory programs—cultural and social research, local workshops, public conversations and forums, and multimedia interpretations of heritage (film, performance/exhibition).

Integrated with local community actors, these programs will engage with the following questions:

• What are the legal, economic, philosophical, material, and biological dimensions and implications of heritage in this city district?
• Which histories are valued—and why?
• How have they changed over time, and in what ways are they still evolving?
• What is considered local heritage, and into which local transformations is this heritage entangled or involved?
• How can this heritage be proactively reimagined to address urgent social, political, and ecological challenges—including cultural conflict and the climate crisis?
• What kind of art, humanities, and social sciences do we need in order to understand and enable such transformations?
• In other words, how different do art and scholarship need to be?
• How can the district’s heritage be connected to the diverse generations that have inhabited it?
• How can heritage be mobilized for identity-building, or used to justify exclusion?
• What are the alternative concepts and practices of heritage?

Project Activities:

• Open studios
• Hermeneutic lectures on heritage
• Film screenings: “Film as Heritage”
• Urban walks through cinematic and historical narratives
• Film heritage workshops for children and youth
• Performative lectures on sound and space
• Concert lectures on space and sound
• Audio and video installations: “Tributes to Film”

  The project is co-financed by the City of Zagreb’s “Culture and Art in the Community” program for 2024/2025.

Project partners:
Zagreb City Libraries, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of the University of Zagreb, Croatian State Archives – Film Archives, Zagreb Film, Jadran Film, Local Council of Trnjanska Savica, and others.

¹– Archaeological findings confirm that people lived in Trnje in ancient times—for instance, a Roman-era grave was found at the intersection of Savska Street and Vukovar Avenue, while in 1911, an Avar-Slavic burial site from the 7th–8th century was unearthed in the Krugama area. The name Trnje was first mentioned in 1242 in the Golden Bull, stating that much of this land on Zagreb’s southern edge was granted to Gradec.
² – The term “urboglyph” was coined by Croatian intermedia artist Boris Bakal (see usage in texts by S. Horvat, Š. Džafić, S. Marjanić, S. Uskoković, L. Siotto, etc.).