15th/17th/20th August, 14:00 & 17:00, starting at Mariahilferplatz in front of the restaurant Opatija
This tour was designed especially for Murton by urban sociologist Joachim Hainzl in the former suburbs of Graz, Lend and Gries. It is looking for spaces full of Balkan images of the present and the past.
In the districts Lend and Gries are many traces which the Balkans – wherever they really begin and end – and its people have left behind for centuries. Many of them are connected to religious places, like the Muslim prayer room of the Bosnian monarchy regiment down Grenadiergasse or the Minorites as a site for maintaining Slovenian religion and culture.
The history of the last decades is characterised by people who first came as guest workers and later on as traumatised refugees, who were in need of social help (through OMEGA). Nonetheless some of them were able to settle down as restaurant owners or bakers and thus become important parts of the culture of these districts. Not all of those old wounds are healed yet and that can be read on the walls in the streets in the form of stencils or graffiti.
Equipped with a map of the “area of the investigation of the Balkans” the participants can collect stickers at the various stations and stick them in their map.
“Every state needs its own Balkan2 – Slavoj Žižek
Start on the Mariahilferplatz in front of the restaurant Opatija
End on the Griesplatz
Duration: ca 1,5 hours
Free entry but please apply beforehand because the number of participants is limited. Via email: amazing.graz2013@gmail.com