Zvjezdane Staze

Place

Mijakovići is a village of about fifty houses in the hills above Vareš. Traditional Bosnian architecture, increasingly rare. The neighbours are used to artists coming and going. Conversations over the fence, coffee in someone's yard.

Nine hundred metres from here stands Bobovac, the capital of the medieval Bosnian kingdom, the last stronghold before falling to the Ottoman Empire in 1463. The ruins still stand on the hilltop, visible from the yard. Bobovac marks an interruption, and a point from which to begin again.

The mountain above the village is called Perun, after the Slavic god of thunder. A hiking trail passes by the house to the summit. The sign reads: Zvjezdane Staze.

The Name

Star paths. The name of a trail on the Via Dinarica network. It was here before us, nailed to a barn.

In the former Yugoslavia, Zvjezdane Staze was the translation of Star Trek. A vision of a future without scarcity, war, or nationalism. Difference that remains difference.

The name stays. A reminder, not a promise.

A Living System

We think of this place as an organism. Those who come may choose to become part of something that extends beyond their stay, or simply to pass through. Some encounters remain brief. Others find their own form. Manuel Pessoa de Lima recorded one of the village fountains and combined it with 127 piano fragments that recombine at random, indefinitely. The piece was made here, from what was here.

What interests us are the conditions. Connections accumulate slowly, mostly out of sight, surfacing elsewhere.

The Piano

There is a Petrof upright in the house. It has not been tuned in decades. It will not be. Artists have recorded on it since.

More about the piano →

Principles