THE ZONE is a three-part performance created as part of MONTAЖ$TROJ’s residency at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb (MSU) and performed on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of MONTAЖ$TROJ’s existence. The performance THE ZONE is a five-hour triptych about the unfinished University Hospital in Zagreb which explores, through different phases of its construction, the reasons for the suspension of works and various rumors and conspiracy theories according to which the hospital was never supposed to be completed.
In the first part (THE ZONE_A), Pjer (Branko) Meničanin enacted Mayor Ivo Latin; in the second part (THE ZONE_B), Vinko Kraljević enacted Dr. Ivan Prodan, chief of medicine and director of the hospital during the ’90s. Two journalists (Biserka Ipša Kunčević and Slavica Knežević Torjanac) are in conversation with them, enriching the performance with their own experiences from the period in which they were paying a voluntary tax for the hospital so that they might benefit from its services later in life. Reality and fiction are intertwined in the third part (THE ZONE_C), in which actor Alan Katić, from the perspective of a construction site guard, communicates the recent history of the unfinished hospital and everything that has been happening around it and in it since construction was suspended. In the final part, the actresses, as retired citizens, speak out about personal fears surrounding healthcare and the fact that their increasingly deteriorating health is increasing their living costs, insecurity and fear of the future.
Projections of archival footage, a model of the hospital, a specially made table and symbolic mud delivered from the construction site served as parts of the scenography, and a short performance by the Nursing Home “Sv. Ana“ Choir rounded off each individual part of the performance.
