Walking by the River: Vardar, 2024/25
Wall-based installation with a series of 7 drawings with graphite and ink (50x70 cm each), wall-engraving, standardised metal plates for marking bridges (40x50 cm each), and 3 photographs (30x40 cm each).
15.11.2024 – 08.02.2025
Sediment, Centre for Contemporary Art, Graz, curated by Dicle Bestas and Basak Senova. Photo: schubidu quartet.
Walking by the River is a wall-based installation that captures my ongoing reflection on the transformations of Skopje’s urban and natural landscape. At the heart of this work is the River Vardar, which runs through the city of Skopje, the capital of the Republic of North Macedonia, and serves as both a physical and metaphorical border—dividing and uniting, eroding and renewing. This installation emerges from my daily walks along the river, where I’ve observed the changing environment from a particular, intimate vantage point.
The installation consists of multiple elements that combine personal observation with broader socio-political commentary. At its core is a large wall engraving that traces the shape of the River Vardar and its riverbed in Skopje, mapping its contours with a sense of permanence while reflecting its ever-shifting role in the city’s fabric. Surrounding this central engraving are ten hand-drawn works, each 50x70 cm, offering detailed, painterly interpretations of the river’s landscape at different moments, capturing the ephemeral and transient changes in nature and the cityscape.
Accompanying these drawings are two photographs, each 30x40 cm, which document specific sites along the river that hold personal and historical significance. These images serve as a visual anchor, connecting the drawn moments of observation with tangible locations, tying memory to place.
The installation incorporates materials from my ongoing research-based projects Naming the Bridge: Rosa Plaveva and Nakie Bajram, and Document Missing. This includes the fanzine developed for Naming the Bridge and two metal plates measuring 40x50 cm, engraved with symbolic references to a new public site. The plates act as markers of memory and erasure, signifying the absence of women's histories in public spaces while offering a potential new narrative to be reclaimed.
Through Walking by the River, I explore the river as a metaphor for memory and time, a site of constant change and a witness to Skopje's shifting histories. The river becomes a space where personal memory intersects with public history and where the natural landscape mirrors the fluidity of collective and individual narratives.