Skopje between neoliberalism and crippling ethnocracy: self-organised art practice as a mode of resistance

Skopje, the capital of the Republic of North Macedonia, underwent the Europe’s biggest urban design upheavals in recent years - a project dubbed Skopje 2014. The project was planned by the National Government and the local authorities for several years with a relative lack of transparency. The plan was unveiled in 2009 and since then activist and self-organised groups of citizens questioned the city authorities on urban planning and governance.

This paper will look into how the violent, haphazardly planned urban acts that rapidly change the city’s architecture, created self-organised citizen initiatives that question the neoliberal intentions of erasure. As a result of the brutality of the project, new generations of self-organised citizens micro networks spurred in Skopje, and they are using diverse means to mobilize the citizenry and voice their message. A research undertaken on civic self-organisation in urban sphere reported that urban planners working in the local urban departments are unaware of the grass-root, self-organised resistance of citizens who are defending their neighbourhoods. Self-organisation in Skopje provided an important shift in the contemporary urban planning, decentring from grand narratives and moving towards spaces/initiatives that offer ‘alternative urban imaginaries’ based on solidarity and inter-personal interaction. This paper will also look at different aspects of the process of re-branding and re-developing Skopje by focusing on various citizen- led creative initiatives. The aim is to elaborate on the variety and dynamism of these practices, and the effectiveness and transformative potential of such practices vis-à-vis the current urban policies.