Changing Identities & Histories - Fragmented memories of Yugoslavia at God's House Tower

About

A journey back to Yugoslavia through geography and memories.

Travelling and visiting museums along the way opens a view into the rift between the interpretations of the same historical moments. These collections are collected using different frameworks, different views of the same lands, fitting different national agendas.

I feel as if I am entering the world of Alice Through the Looking Glass. As she passes through the mirror, Alice enters a landscape that is a massive chessboard, not visible at first glance, where a chess game is in progress. The squares are so large that she must take a train to move from one to the other.

My Travel journal captures the fleetingness of travel. It is a subjective record, affected by a multitude of things: the mood, the temperature, and the comfort felt at the time. It is openly affected by the traveller's prior memories, the reason for the travel, their beliefs and culture. It is prejudiced knowledge, challenging the position of travel journals as an objective knowledge creation.

Travel was accepted as knowledge creation in the Enlightenment. Travelogues were prioritised in scientific journals, such as the Edenborough Review. Early traveller–adventurers' records and travelogues form the basis of the material archived in the archives I visited about the Balkans and Yugoslavia.