Critical Tourism

Critical tourism implies a critique of haphazard touristification and the reflection of its social and aesthetic connotations. Critical tourism is aimed at modelling a critical discourse that challenges the commercial strive for mono-culture of tourism in Croatia and elsewhere, and its consequences on cultural, social and spatial development.

On the one hand, grey) (area seeks to actively include contemporary local and international creativity within the existing framework of so-called cultural tourism, which primarily relies on traditional contents of cultural heritage. With the programme of artistic residencies, production of works in Korčula and personal presence of artists and guest curators in programme implementation, grey) (area contributes to active participation of artists, whereby it displaces them from the passive position of a tourist. On the other hand, through one of the programme lines entitled Critical Tourism, grey) (area presents a selection of artistic works and projects reflecting on various, primarily negative consequences of tourism, with emphasis on the concept of common goods of a community, such as public space and infrastructure.

We present artworks and projects that critically thematise tourism in general through artistic interpretations of said topic, using them as tools for commenting and criticising the sociocultural and political-economic practices while putting emphasis on and directing the view towards the ethics, poetics, and policies of space. As case studies, its methodologies can be applied to similar tourist locations/destinations all over the world.

Critical Tourism exhibition catalogue, 2024, Croatian / English, free download:
http://sivazona.hr/images/novi-dokumenti/Kriticki_turizam_Critical_Tourism.pdf