RESISTING GENTRIFICATION: IN-SITU PERFORMANCE PROTESTS IN TREŠNJEVKA NEIGHBORHOOD

Trešnjevka, a historically working-class neighborhood in Zagreb, has undergone significant transformation since the post-socialist period of the late 1990s. Rapid privatization and the rise of private interests have increasingly overwrote the public interest. Today, the area faces intense gentrification, driven by dominant narratives that reshape space, depoliticize public life, and propose a hegemonic vision of urban development. This project critically engages with these processes by resisting the dominant narratives and appearances of gentrification in Trešnjevka.

Through in-situ performative protests, it seeks to reclaim and repoliticize gentrified sites, transforming them into active sites of resistance. Rather than merely occupying the space, these performative protests open up the space for collective proposals of alternative imaginaries, challenging the habitual notions of protest as limited to standing, shouting, or expressing dissent. Rooted in a choreographic perspective, the protests use movement-based tasks and choreographic tools to create counter-appearances that challenge gentrification norms. In doing so, they offer new possibilities for how public space can be used, imagined, and understood.