PLACES

the imaginary point of arrival is hovering in immutable remoteness like a mirage, it is set against the backdrop of expectations, fierce vermilion sunsets and misty sunrises, and alongside the thundery oceans and never-ending golden fields. yes, there’s an inescapable sense of urgency and anticipation to accompany the journey - obscuring the clamour of thoughts with the vastness of landscape. the sky is falling yet not quite touching the ground. the road feels elastic and nearly liquid. the further it stretches, the more seductive it is, the more unknown is what lies beyond. is there an importance in reaching the destination, or is it the extremity that patches the process?

LONDON, 2026

20 years of living in London

have you ever woken up and wondered why are you still in this city?

a sorting hub, a cluster of contradictions & unfinished symphonies

the city that winkles with a sleepless eye

where the abstract subsumed life, life has subsumed the abstract

it transforms our future into the past

the city known to be covered by a fog thick as cotton and translucent as glass

facelessness and injustice are here in the equal parts

escapism in solitude, only music to wash away the extent of the lonely days

at times it felt the steering wheel revolved autonomously -

I questioned myself, do I dare to take control over it?

the corrosive hardcore is in its apogee, to the point of arrant devastation,

largely, it hasn’t been much different to living on the slope of an active volcano:

flickers of my dreams, collapsed friendships, broken links -

everyone is looking at you from high up - down at your feet you find the truth & strength

while some are trapped in a circular influential mirror

admiring their own distorted reflections - their activity is on expire

the city of disjointed narratives, the insignificance of detachable attributes -

assigned to you by those who are the rightless in the wrongest way

the counterbalance to remorse is the scattered empathy

the other days it’s all the excess, strain, emotional terror

a numbing pain is stuck in a congestion zone -

you are the one who is overcharged each time you want to spill it out

and as I go I bend the light through fractured geometry

combusting shutterstops alike to bodily wounds

I want to catch my breath and feel that I exist beyond one moment

the heart is where the action is, the emphasis on the feeling is where my gaze falls

here, everybody’s sailing on a pass through

quick entry cash full eurozone scheme.

the architecture of grandeur, the spectre of deceased

socialist slogans overthrown by the grey of posters -

the meaning is lost amidst the debris of graffiti

nostalgia is tugging in the every corner

trolleybuses on hold, pollution is stingy,

I go where no tourist put their feet on -

the rusty barges & tenantless dockyards

countering the crisp of the spring

the city is pulsating through the layers of reflections -

stuck in the 90s shopping malls & dusty markets

kafanas’ soiled tablecloths, the crunch of filo pastry

the scars of not tool long ago bombed city

I trail the gasp of light in its exhausted chasms

BELGRADE, 2026

FIELDWORK, 2010-2021

BORNEO, 2017

14th May 2017

I'm returning alive from my 3 days hiking & camping in the wilderness of the Gunung Mulu National Park in Borneo, the one you can reach only via a canoe ride combined with the 9k track through the jungles (half of the way it was raining as bad as no rainproof shields could perform their function), there's no electricity at the camp, obviously no mobile network coverage, the sound of cicadas is your lullaby, the cold mountain river is your private bath, and to resist the current it's quite a task, but the water is just pristine and tastes so crisp. your meals are consistent and include only boiled rice.

day 2 is the toughest of challenges I've ever went through, even more mental than physical, it is the climb to the Mount Api (Fire Mountain), 1750m above the sea level, you start about 6.30am, all around and underneath your feet are dripping wet, because it is in the midst of the untouched rainforest, generously watered by the heavy rainfall the day and night before (to make the experience even unforgettable), the ground is getting more slippery and uneven as you ascend, the combination of the tree roots, ladders, edgy stones and ropes, branches and moss, so much coordination of the all body parts required, and your head is absolutely pure of all the thoughts and anxieties because you only thinking about how not to make the wrong move and not to break your bones or even worse, the change in altitude together with the humidity in apogee makes you breathless and squeezes the chest, about 4 litres of water is on your shoulders, because it's still +30, and you're sweating like in the hell's kitchen, possibly all the sins are evaporating with your sweat and getting totally erased from your karma after doing this, it's rated one of the most difficult climbs on this planet, which you have to compete in one day - before the sunset, so I made in 9 hours to the pinnacles summit and back.

and the return...it makes you believe you're stuck in the eternity of the falling loose rocks and the labyrinths of the intertwined branches, during the last 500 meters every step is a pain resonating throughout the each cell of your body, the knees reject the commands to bend, your fingers are numb, and on the arrival to the camp you're knocked out in the utmost void of any sensations, it takes a good few hours to realise your arms and legs are all covered with scratches and bruises and to comprehend the new dimensions of the physical capability. and the next morning it's 9k jungle track back on the legs which are unable to bend in the hiking boots still loaded with the pools of water.

“The elan that draws humans toward islands extends the double movement that produces islands in themselves. Dreaming of islands—whether with joy or in fear, it doesn’t matter—is dreaming of pulling away, of being already separate, far from any continent, of being lost and alone—or it is dreaming of starting from scratch, recreating, beginning anew. Some islands drifted away from the continent, but the island is also that toward which one drifts; other islands originated in the ocean, but the island is also the origin, radical and absolute”.

Deleuze, Gilles (2002) Desert islands. In Desert Islands and Other Texts, 1953-1974, David Lapoujade, ed. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e).