Patchwork Mostar – When you enter a city, you enter a story
The multicultural city withholds opportunities and challenges, cultural richness and fragmentation of society. Patchwork of Narratives, autumn 2014/ winter 2015, focuses on two cities that throughout history constantly been affected by these issues, two cities who repetitively change between interaction and fragmentation, Beirut (Lebanon) and Mostar (Bosnia and Herzegovina).
As in few other cities Beirut have risen from civil war and invasion and regained its economic development over and over again. However the huge urban development projects undertaken by private stakeholders in recent years are rarely rooted in the citizens needs. Meanwhile Beiruts city map and its development is strongly characterized by a division between the country’s different ethnic groups.
Mostar is also a city strongly defined by physical and mental fragmentation, under many years the Bosnien War divided the city between Bosniaks and Croats. The legacy of the war is still very present and undoubtedly most distinctly in the very central no man’s land, the District, a hollow urban buffer zone between the city’s ethnic communities.
By enabling cultural institutions and cultural actors to take a more active and strategic role within the framework of urbanization issues the project will promote sustainable and democratic urban development in Mostar and Beirut. The project creates, for the first time, the so necessary and requested cross-border dialogue within the city and between the cities different social sectors.
The experiences from Beirut and Mostar are presented during autumn 2014 in exhibitions in each city. A joint exhibition at Färgfabriken in winter 2015 will highlight and capture the issues, ideas and experiences raised in Beirut and Mostar.
Partners
The project is supported by The Swedish Postcode Lottery.