Square / Kvadrat is inspired by a black-and-white photograph from 1981 showing a group of young people gathered on a hill around large white letters spelling “TITO”. Constructed by a socialist youth organization to honor the late Yugoslav president Josip Broz Tito, the letters were made out of white-painted stones placed on a steep hillside above a Bosnian village, visible from a great distance. By the late 1980s, the landmark had lost its political and social significance and was gradually overtaken by bushes and trees.

In 2012, I initiated a project to construct a new landmark on the same hill: a simple square with no preconceived political or ideological agenda. Its use and meaning were to be determined by those who built it. Around 30 people responded to the call and spent three days in July clearing the hill and using stones from the old landmark to build a 30×30-meter square. The process of constructing the new sign and the conversations that followed were documented and turned into the film Square / Kvadrat.

The Square project explores the question of collectivness by reconfiguring symbols and language and reaffirming common work. While the project is inspired by the socialist collectivism, its aim is not to promote any specific ideology or political message. Instead, the square invites new forms of political thinking and offers an outlined, empty space as a site for future revisions and reconfigurations.