Fluidity and friendship: the choir that surprised the city

At the moment Skopje, the capital of the Republic of Macedonia, is still undergoing one of Europe’s biggest urban design upheavals—a project dubbed Skopje 2014. Described as a ‘building bonanza’, by the Guardian,1 the Skopje 2014 project was planned by the Government for several years with a relative lack of transparency. The plan was originally intended to transform the city centre into an area of concentrated development, with a wide range of interventions and numerous new buildings. The plan for Skopje 2014 provoked considerable protest activity, both online and offline. Since 2009, activist groups and self-organised groups of citizens have opposed the city authorities over the plans. One of the most prominent protest groups is the self-organised choir Raspeani Skopjani, who protest by singing. Over the last six years, I have had the privilege to follow their work, mostly on social media. I became interested in their work because it is performative, humorous and also represents the problem that Skopje faces as a city. For that reason, I invited three activists and media researchers who are active in the cultural resistance in Skopje to elaborate their thinking on the choir Raspeani Skopjani’s activities. They all answered the same five questions about the choir’s strategies (on the streets and on social media) around the project Skopje 2014. The text is also interspersed with documentation (videos and images) of the choir’s activities that was widely circulated on social media.