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Zgodbe moje soseske
(Tekst je bil prvič objavljen v spremljevalni publikaciji projekta Pred domačim pragom)
Ljubljansko predmestje Grba je edina soseska doslej, kjer živim dalj časa, okrog štiri leta. Do sedaj sem se ves čas selila in začasnih okolij, kjer sem stanovala, nisem kaj dosti opažala. Dokler se sam giblješ, se spremembe dogajajo tebi, okolica pa "miruje". Ko pa se umiriš na nekem mestu, opaziš spremembe, ki se dogajajo zunaj tebe.
Odkar stanujem tu, se precej potikam naokrog. Razlog je moj pes. Če imaš psa, ga moraš večkrat na dan sprehajat. Meje moje soseske segajo, do koder jo na vsakodnevnih sprehodih obkroživa s psom. Tako v okolici zaznavam spremembe, ki bi jih sicer ne opazila. Na prvi pogled povsem vsakdanja predmestna soseska je v resnici prizorišče številnih dogodkov. Nekateri od njih počasi in neopazno, drugi pa hitro in tako rekoč pred očmi spreminjajo podobo okolja.
Živim v bloku, ki je bil zgrajen v sedemdesetih za delavske družine. Takih blokov, ki jih je čas že precej načel, je v naselju veliko. Čeprav izgledajo enako, potekajo med njimi nevidne meje, ki bi jih brez psa nikoli ne odkrila. Nekateri bloki so bolj socialni, imenujem jih geto. Precej prebivalcev izvira iz območja bivše Jugoslavije. Ne marajo, da se zadržuješ v njihovi okolici. Drugačne vrste geta so nova luksuzna naselja in hiše, ki so se obdale z ograjami in elektronskimi varnostnimi portali.
Moja soseska je skupek urbanih skrajnosti. Na sprehodu s psom dnevno obhodiva vso zgodovino lokalnih poselitev tega teritorija. Iz pretežno delavske soseske, vrasle v nekdanjo kmečko predmestje, se soseska pospešeno spreminja v luksuzno meščansko predmestje.
Moja soseska nima nobene skupne zgodbe. Morda me je prav to pritegnilo, da sem jo pred tremi leti začela beležiti s pomočjo svojega fotoaparata. Na vsakodnevnih obhodih s psom je nastajala moja zgodba. Na sprehodih sem fotografirala procese spreminjanja najinega "lovišča". Sprva le najbolj očitne prizore, kasneje sem odkrivala tudi bolj neopazne spremembe: stanovalci izhodijo novo stezo, posekajo drevo, zelenje zarase zemljo.... Kot da prostor živi svoje vzporedno življenje, ki je sicer odvisno od človekovih posegov, pa vendar pred njim skrito.
Ljubljana, oktober 2004
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The Stories of my Neighborhood
(The essay has been first published in the supplementary publication of the Outside My Door project)
The Ljubljana suburb of Grba is the only neighborhood I have lived in for an extended length of time, around four years. Before I moved here, I was always going from one place to another and never paid much attention to my temporary surroundings. When you are always moving, change is something that happens to you; the area around you "stands still". But when you stop moving and settle down in a place, you begin to notice the changes that occur outside of you.
Ever since I lived here, I have done quite a bit of walking.
The reason is my dog. If you have a dog, you have to walk him several times a day. The limits of my neighborhood stretch as far as the territory my dog and I encompass on our daily walks. So I am aware of changes in the area that I would not otherwise notice. What appears at first glance to be an entirely ordinary suburban neighborhood is, in fact, the scene of numerous events. Some unfold slowly and inconspicuously, while others transform the image of the neighborhood quickly - before our very eyes, as it were.
I live in an apartment block that was built in the 1960s for the families of workers. Our area has many such blocks, and time has already made quite an impact on them. Although these blocks all look the same, there are invisible borders running between them, which I would never have discovered without my dog. Some are, more or less, social housing; I call them "the ghetto". Many of the residents in these blocks originally come from other parts of the former Yugoslavia. I don't like to stay too long in the vicinity of these buildings. There is another kind of ghetto, too; you see it in the new luxury developments and the buildings surrounded by fences and electronic security gates.
My neighborhood is a mixture of urban extremes. On my daily walk with my dog we make our rounds through the entire history of the settlement of this territory. From what was predominantly a working-class neighborhood that had been grafted into a former agricultural suburb, the area has been rapidly changing into a bourgeois luxury suburb.
My neighborhood has no single shared story. Maybe this is why, three years ago, I began documenting it with the help of my camera. On my daily rounds with my dog, my own story began to emerge. On these walks, I would photograph the processes of change occurring on our "hunting grounds" - at first, I would take pictures of only the most obvious things, but later I began discovering more subtle changes: a new path was being made by the residents; a tree was being cut down; bare earth was becoming overgrown with vegetation. . . It was as if the space was living its own parallel life, which, though dependent on the interventions of people, was also hidden from them.
Ljubljana, October 2004 |
