PREFABRICATING SOLIDARITY: IMS-ŽEŽELJ BETWEEN YUGOSLAVIA, CUBA, AND ANGOLA
16 May - 14 September 2025
Curatorial and authorial team:
Vladimir Kulić, Vesna Pavlović, Jelica Jovanović, Fredo Rivera, Ana Knežević, Emilia Epštajn
About the exhibition:
In the 1970s, Yugoslavia, Cuba, and Angola were connected through an unusual circulation of prefabricated building technology. As members of the Non-Aligned Movement seeking development paths outside the Cold War binary, their geopolitical alignment acquired physical dimension through the IMS Žeželj system—a sophisticated skeletal structure of concrete columns and floor slabs held together by steel cables, developed in 1957 by engineer Branko Žeželj at Belgrade's IMS Institute.
Historically, prefabrication emerged as a distinctly colonial technology. From portable colonial cottages shipped to Australia to prefabricated iron buildings exported to Gold Rush California and West African trading posts, the technology facilitated imperial expansion through the rapid settlement of distant territories under European control. London's Crystal Palace, built for the Great Exhibition of 1851, represented the pinnacle of early industrialized construction, demonstrating how standardized components could be endlessly reconfigured.
The circulation of IMS technology among Yugoslavia, Cuba, and Angola reorganized this colonial "geometry of power." Rather than following the traditional unidirectional flows from imperial centers to peripheries, these exchanges created an entangled triangle of technological solidarity. The system wasn't simply exported but co-produced, with engineers adapting it to local conditions and needs. Through these transformations, a technology with colonial origins became a tool for post-colonial development.
Between 2023 and 2024, the research team traveled to Cuba and Angola to document these buildings and interview participants in these exchanges. Through photographs, archival materials, and video interviews with architects and engineers from all three countries, this exhibition explores how "triangular solidarity" created lasting connections across continents. Though the ambitious vision of an alternative world order would ultimately falter in the 1990s, the concrete structures endure, housing thousands of families and standing as testament to a moment when technological exchange could serve liberation rather than domination.
The research and curatorial team would like to express their heartfelt gratitude to all those who contributed to the successful realization of the project. The project received generous support from the following sources:
Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx Studies, Vanderbilt University; Committee on Support of Faculty Scholarship (CSFS), Department of Art History, Grinnell College; Curb Center for Art, Enterprise, and Public Policy, Vanderbilt University; David Lingle Faculty Fellowship in Architecture, Department of Architecture, Iowa State University; Department of History of Art and Architecture, Vanderbilt University; Vanderbilt University College of Arts & Science; Vanderbilt University Global Engagement Travel Fund; Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Serbia; Embassy of the Republic of Cuba; Embassy of the Republic of Angola; Institute IMS; Yugoslav Film Archive.
The exhibition will be on view at MAU through September 2025.
Curatorial and authorial team: Vladimir Kulić, Vesna Pavlović, Jelica Jovanović, Fredo Rivera, Ana Knežević, Emilia Epštajn
Exhibition and Graphic Design: Antun Sevšek and Damir Gamulin
Technical implementation: Ivan Vukdragović
