Built in 1981, Koteks building in Split was the first Socialist shopping center and sport hall of its kind in Eastern Europe, and an unique example of early modernist building in this areas. Like many other architectural  examples along the Adriatic coast, this has also fallen a victim of

the local politics of urban planning that includes strategic neglect of modernist - socialist heritage of Yugoslavian period.

Like a dystopian archeologist, Margan collects the fallen plastic pieces of the building’s broken light cupolas  lying

in the area around the building- and with these artifacts, creates a new form.

Specifications:

Mixed media installation,

sculpture, found materials

Year:

2016

Exhibited:

Together with the work Monument Reflecting the City at Gallery Skola, Split, Croatia, 2016

Parallel Art Fair Vienna, gallery Kunstbuero, 2017

Margan recreates the original shape of the light

cupolas in the gallery space – in its original size.

By montaging broken pieces of plastic together

and fixing them on a metal frame, she creates a

new form that resembles gigantic sunglasses,

potentiate by  the metal frame holders stretching

into the space.

By reversing positions, the sculpture allows a new perspective of seeing (through) architecture, not

only by creating a physical experience of that what

was once up on the roof and far away, but also by creating a ‘poetic’ lens through which we can reflect onto our own history and current value system.

The tittle of the work Split Dioptre therefore reflects not only onto

 the name of the city – Split, but points as well to the 'split' of value systems - between preservation of  cultural heritage on one hand, and the neoliberal, spatial-political developments that favor mass tourism and privatization of public space on the other.