Guest Contributor: Nevena Škrbić Alempijević
In March 2026, Anamaria, Fiona, and Rozemarijn took part in the Before Ruins conference at Ruhr University Bochum. This guest post emerges out of a collective inquiry there about how everyday objects can shape and reimagine our sense of the future. Nevena joined these discussions, bringing with her a simple but suggestive object: a tablecloth. In what follows, she explores what this object can tell us about materialities and futures.
This post presents an object-centered ethnographic vignette that explores the intersection of materiality, memory, and postindustrial urbanscape through the imagined perspective of a tablecloth. This domestic textile artifact bears the figure of Jankić, the logo of the now-defunct Sljeme industry in Sesvete, an eastern suburb of Zagreb. Its owner Slavica, a former Sljeme worker, has preserved it as a mnemonic device that evokes not only the factory, which closed in 2006, but also the way of life associated with it.
Although the object was not originally produced within the industrial system of the Sljeme factory, it became symbolically embedded within its legacy, functioning as a material anchor for individual and collective memories linked to industrial labour, family histories, and community creation.
From an ordinary household item, it became an affective object that materialises personal resistance to industrial decline, ruination, and forgetting. Through repeated acts of display within the domestic sphere, the tablecloth prompted storytelling and intergenerational transmission of lived experiences associated with Sljeme. Its temporary relocation into the classroom, mediated by Slavica’s grandson, briefly shifted its status from a private mnemonic artifact into a semi-public pedagogical object and exhibit.
The tablecloth’s first encounter with the researcher took place in a classroom at Sesvete Gymnasium. It was an unfamiliar setting for the object. One afternoon, Slavica removed it from the cupboard where it was usually stored. She washed and carefully ironed it, as she had done on numerous occasions when it was expected to appear spotless and presentable, displayed on a festive table and in front of guests. Such appearances were never accidental. Family members and visitors would notice it, comment on it, touch it and smooth its fabric. Its presence often invited stories – stories about the years when Slavica and her husband Filip worked at the Sljeme factory, whose recognizable trademark covered its surface.
The tablecloth has been a part of Slavica’s life for many years. Originally produced as a promotional item, it had no direct connection to the industrial production that once took place at Sljeme. Yet for Slavica it functioned as a reminder, a subtle act of resistance, a material trace through which memories of life and work endured despite the factory’s closure, subsequent deterioration, and broader politics of forgetting.
On that particular day, however, Slavica did not place it on a table. Instead, she packed it into a bag and handed it to her grandson. He carried it to school and carefully attached it to a classroom board. Surrounded by new faces, the tablecloth became the centre of attention. The teacher invited Slavica’s grandson to introduce it. Presenting it as though it were a precious museum artefact, he used it to tell the story of his family: his grandparents’ arrival in Sesvete to work at the factory, and their relationship that began at Sljeme. Much of their lives had unfolded in the shadow of Jankić, the figure printed on the tablecloth’s fabric. As the story developed, the tablecloth seemed to gain significance in the eyes of its eager audience. No longer only an everyday object, it became an exhibit, a topic of conversation and a trigger for reflection, imagination, and planning.
Displayed on that same board, the tablecloth also encountered the researcher. Its appearance immediately drew her attention. She wanted to know what it was, whom it belonged to, and who had brought it to the classroom. Those present recounted its story and the story of its owners. The atmosphere surrounding it was dynamic. It was frequently used as an example of how former Sljeme workers and local residents expressed their relationship with the abandoned factory.
In its presence, students were assigned a small-scale ethnographic research project. They were asked to speak with members of their community – their family members, neighbours, and others who had been connected to the Sljeme factory in various ways. For many students, the place whose name was printed on the tablecloth had represented a grey zone: neglected, devastated, uninteresting, and appealing only to adventurers. The city bustle had seemed to end on the other side of the railway tracks that separated Sljeme from the centre of Sesvete. At those same tracks, students’ interest in the former factory had often stopped as well.
Yet the research process brought about a change. Students began to look at the tablecloth with greater understanding. Conversations with former Sljeme workers were retold in the classroom, pointing to the vibrant social life within and outside the factory walls. A place that had previously seemed distant and unfamiliar gradually acquired a face, a voice, and a material presence.
The students also expressed a desire to see the site revitalized – to become once again a place of gathering, community, and memory through educational, cultural, and social activities. Their work on Sljeme was not focused solely on the past. In the presence of the tablecloth, one student concluded: “I want Sljeme not to be forgotten, but to become a symbol of renewal and new beginnings, a place where history intertwines with a vision for a better tomorrow. I want as many young people as possible (…) to get involved in this work, because it is precisely we young people who hold the future in our hands.”
And what possible future awaits the tablecloth itself? It has returned home to Slavica. When it is no longer kept in her cupboard, it will likely be preserved by her daughters and her grandchildren. In this way, it could continue to serve as a material sign of connection to an industrial past and a commitment to caring for a postindustrial future.
Nevena Škrbić Alempijević is a Tenured Professor at the Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb. She graduated in Ethnology and English Language and Literature from the University of Zagreb. After working as a curator at the Ethnographic Museum of Istria, she joined the University of Zagreb in 2001. She earned her PhD with a dissertation on Croatian carnival and wedding customs and pursued further training at the University of Bergen. She participates in the international doctoral programme Transformations in European Societies.
She served as President of the International Society for Ethnology and Folklore (SIEF) and received the Croatian State Award for Science in 2020. Her research focuses on urban anthropology, postindustrial spaces, and social memory. She currently leads a Croatian Science Foundation project exploring postindustrial urban transformations and participatory approaches to shaping citizen-oriented urban futures.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Croatian Science Foundation under the project “The Transformation of the Postindustrial City: Space, Community, and Work” (HRZZ-IP-2022-10-2473), https://postcity.ffzg.unizg.hr/.
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