Nostalgia is not what it used to be
Tito memes, old Yugoslav music videos and propaganda began appearing in my feed. Over time, my friends and I became conditioned, much like Instagram’s algorithm, to notice Yugoslav content and share it in our group chat. We thought we were preserving our history. As the archive grew, so did the realization that many people with roots in former Yugoslavia turn to social media for community and cultural reconnection.
The work explores a fragmented identity through two separate videos displayed on two screens. The screen on the left presents the material circulating in my group chat and, by extension, reflects the kinds of memories favored by the algorithm. The video on the right unfolds in three parts. First, the writer Dubravka Ugrešić discusses the concept of Yugonostalgia. She warns the viewer about the elusive nature of nostalgia, without historical understanding or context, longing can become deception. This is followed by VHS footage from a day at a refugee camp in Tran.s, and finally, recordings from my parents’ last party in Bosnia in 1992.
They sing about how days pass and eventually fade into distant dreams. Today, the lyrics seem like an uncanny premonition. Perhaps nostalgia is nothing more than ordinary days refracted through time, displacement, stories, new contexts, and cultural symbols until they are assigned greater significance than they once held. Which stories do we inherit through family history, and which are amplified by algorithms and the longing for belonging? If our memories are shaped by the endless stream of images we consume, what ultimately becomes worth remembering?
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