Drugi jezik na kojem je dostupan ovaj članak: Bosnian
How do you responsibly and professionally treat the local design heritage? Is there a perception of the industrial past of the second half of the 20th century in our society today and what kind? These are only some of the questions that have served as a pretext for artistic and scientific research activities within the project Retrography of Design, which was initiated and implemented in the summer of 2015 by art historian Irfan Hošić, graphic designers Damir Midžić and Adnan Suljkanović and design students from BiH universities – Azra Kurbegović, Senad Beganović and Ahmet Prošić. During five days they worked on the devastated materials and artifacts from the organizational unit Atelje – a former department of design and reproduction of photography of the Bihać factory of flexible packaging “Polietilenka” – which at times employed up to thirteen designers, reproduction photography experts and editors. In addition to the artistic intervention, which has aroused great attention of the public and media, this action has served as a place of scientific valorization of found artifacts and at a later date, in Zagreb’s scientific journal Holon, the text was published by art historian Irfan Hošić titled Industrial zone Bihać: Design production in Bihać companies, at the time of socialism (Holon 6/1, 2016, pp. 100-121).
Almost two years later, the same team decided to document the complete material along with this research and art project in the form of a publication. Publication Retrografija Dizajna (Retrography of Design) was published in March 2017 (Technical Faculty UNBI, ed. Irfan Hošić) on 176 pages in full color. The complete content of the book is available bilingually in Bosnian and English languages and contains three parts. The first represents the introductory article entitled Retrography of Design and Aesthetics of Decay, which tries to contextualize the whole event, ie. to place it in the appropriate social and artistic conditions. The author of this chapter Irfan Hošić states: Following the strategy of contemporary curatorial practice and artistic activity that involves alternative, urgent, direct and site specific consideration, and through involvement of the community, Retrography of Design in its final developed into a multimedia event with a strong interaction with former employees and interested public through a wide range of local media.
The second part of the publication documents all the major events that were recorded during the campaign in July 2015 on the blog retrografija.wordpress.com. In this part of the book there are eleven small scale texts which are written immediately after each performance. This part of the publication reproduces photographs taken during the campaign, and serve as a visual testimony to the character and scope of the project. This segment covers the largest part of the book, and as a sort of catalog of works it documents in detail the whole intervention.
The last part of the publication is the mentioned article Industrial zone Bihać: Design production in Bihać companies, at the time of socialism.
All texts in the publication Retrography of Design are signed by Irfan Hošić, while its design is credited to the duo Adnan Suljkanović and Damir Midžić, who were assisted by Ervin Causevic. Photos in this publication were done by Damir Midžić, Adnan Suljkanović, Amir Husak and Izet Sadiković. Printing was done by the company Grafičar from Bihać. Publication was financed by funds allocated by the BH Telecom, Faculty UNBI, Atlantis vcap from Kulen Vakuf, the regional portal on advertising Media Marketing, Print Studio Grafika from Bihać, with the technical assistance of the Association Ventilator and the Foundation Revizor from Bihać.