5
(u)hode
walking scores, 2025
In late summer 2025, Alisa Oleva shared an invitation to submit a walking score for her collaborative project Do you remember. The scores were to be glued to the walls of the streets of Zagreb.
And so, the walls of the streets of Zagreb made me think and think. The walls of the streets of Zagreb made me think more closely about the walls, think more closely about the streets, and—in that thinking—four walking scores came to be: the walk of exile, burden*, border, and the walk of the shards of light (though you might not walk them in that way).
Perhaps they came as a return to a city my family was forced to flee. Perhaps they came as walks for those who walked the streets (who touched their walls) and then didn’t. But Alisa glued them, and Alisa glued them well.
I began to call them (u)hode. From hodati (to walk), uhoditi (to shadow, follow closely), and uhodati (se) (to get used to something, to get good at something (even if that something is an exile (is a burden (is a border)))).
Now, say that quickly and say that many—hodati, uhodati, uhoditi—say that quickly and say that many, and you might hear duh and hod: a walk and a ghost: a walking ghost, a ghostly walk, a walk for a ghost. A haunting of sorts.
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*photographs of the burden walk are missing. Yes, why not read into that?
Concept: Alisa Oleva
Walking scores: Katarina Gotic Damiani
Photographs: Sanja Merćep