Skopje: The Word’s Bastard

The story of Skopje and its changing from the utopia of an open city to a divided city.

Skopje, the capital of Macedonia which had been declared an “Open City” in the 1960s, has been transforming into a prototypical “Divided City” in recent years. After the armed conflict between members of the Albanian minority and the Macedonian army had almost turned into a civil war in 2001, the gap could not be bridged anymore. Since the dissolution of Yugoslavia the two ethnic groups had been veering away from each other and defining their own inseparable identity. Religious symbols demonstrate territorial claim: minarets sprout in Albanian neighbourhoods, whereas on the hills of Christian-Macedonian areas crosses rise up to the sky. Skopje. The World’s Bastard explores the city’s urban development with regard to its character of a Divided City. It traces material and virtual spaces of conflict and negotiation from the utopias of the 1960s through the frustrations of the 1990s to the actual constructions of identity and places them into a global context.