Forgotten Futures /// ( 5 / 7 ) /// Slow Returning

video upload by Hélène Vogelsinger

"There are places untouched by silence.
Places that never truly sleep.
Removed from the world,
but not from time,
they continue to resonate,
gently, stubbornly,
on another frequency.
Kavadarci is one of them.

High above the Tikveš plain,
between sky, vines, and dust,
stands a monument with a quiet presence,
rooted in the memory of the land
and in the deep veins of the earth.

Built in 1976, it was conceived as an ossuary for more than 300 fallen partisans, guardians of an ancient struggle against forgetting and oppression. But more than a mausoleum,
it was designed as a place of elevation, inspired by the čardak,
the traditional suspended Balkan house, open to the sky,
a refuge for the spirit in the time of empires.

Today, the structure stands empty.
The engraved names are fading.
The concrete is cracked.
And yet, the place endures.
Not as a ruin,
but as an anchor point between worlds.
An axis.
A conduit.
A threshold between what was, what is,
and what continues to insist through the unseen.

This fifth chapter of Forgotten Futures was recorded at dawn,
in that delicate in-between where light has not yet found its shape.
The city, barely awake, murmured beneath the first glow.
In the distance, dogs howled like scattered wolves,
as the sky bloomed in fluid blues and deep rose.
Something imperceptible shifted.
And the space opened.

A vibration emerged,
not the echo of memory,
but something still seeking to reconnect,
to circulate,
to heal.

Slow Returning
is a slow movement inward.
A remembering.
An ancient breath that moves through the present
without sound,
without promise,
but with silent necessity.

This place does not ask to be judged or explained.
It offers listening.
A subtle adjustment of perception.
A space where the visible and the invisible
gently touch.

Sometimes, it is enough to simply be there,
not searching,
to feel something begin to return.
Slowly.
Relentlessly.
And to realize that this return
was always waiting for us.

✨ 👁️ ✨ 👁️ ✨

Forgotten Futures is a seven-episode series that immerses us in an exploration of the Balkans, where past and future converge in a whirlpool
of memory and oblivion.

Slow Returning marks the fifth chapter of this journey, guiding us to the heights of Gradski Park, overlooking Kavadarci in the sun-drenched Tikveš Valley of southern North Macedonia.

Here, ancient stories intertwine with the echoes of battles, the aspirations, and the disillusionments of a bygone era. It is a perpetual tension between what once was and what could yet be—a journey toward an undefined future, shaped by the lessons of history and the unfulfilled promises of a new dawn.

Each episode of Forgotten Futures invites us to rediscover these overlooked narratives, uncovering buried memories scattered across the mountains and valleys of the Balkans.

We are also producing a documentary for this series, which will delve deeper into the history and meaning of each location, offering a richer perspective on these forgotten futures.

Always with 📷 Chalisk Pito


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