David Maljkovic b. 1970
Scene for New Heritage #1 (2004)
Duration: 4 minutes, 33 seconds

In a subtle and charming way, David Maljkovic’s video Scene for a New Heritage I (2005) tackles the grand narratives of former ’s ideology. Responding to a memorial for the World War II Partisan Hospital, completed in 1981 by Vojin Bakiç in Petrova Gora Park in and severely damaged in the Yugoslav war, the artist subjects the structure to a double removal. Maljkovic sets the time of his intervention in the future (on Tito’s birthday) thus distancing the action from our present time and in turn rendering the monument more distant in time than its 25-year life span would otherwise suggest. This discrepancy between the actual versus the indicated time, and the initial purpose of the monument versus its current (2045’s) state, might seem exaggerated. Nevertheless it should be seen as a critical speculation on how today’s youth is estranged from their national heritage and history, and how, in the case of Maljkovic’s video, memory is relied on with an attempt to give new meaning to these sites.