CHEESE AND CREAM

core project
Zagreb, 2002-2004

Kristina Leko in collaboration with BLOK – Local Base for Culture Refreshment

An Initiative to support the dairywomen of Zagreb (2002-2004) took form of actions and happenings in public space, and was followed by a field research that encompassed, inter alia, over 400 interviews, by artistic research and production that lead to an exhibition extended by a media campaign and a website with the related data base.

Cheese and Cream was an activist project dedicated to the Zagreb dairy women who sell homemade traditional milk produce on a number of communal open farmer markets. As their busines declined dramatically in the early 2000s (based on restructuring of Croatian agriculture and milk industry taken over by multinational corporations), together with the non-for-profit cultural organization BLOK we kicked off an initiative of support for diary women demanding better work and sale conditions. The core of the project took place in 2002-2004 as described below. After 2004 I exhibited artworks from the project sporadically and worked on a reader and a documentary film which make note of further developments in the period 2006-2013 (Cheese and Cream, 42’, Factum DFP, Zagreb, 2013). Two dairywomen took part in a theater piece I collaborated on in 2017. I still work on a larger series of portraits drawings of dairy women, as well as keep in touch with several of them and follow their situations. In 2019/2020 Zagreb based art organization OLP revisited the project, reconstructed the web site from the year 2003, and published an evaluation of the project carried out by several cultural anthropologists and critics. Below you will find a text written by me in 2006 describing the core project (2002-2004) accompanied by the Declaration on Milkmaids, 2002.

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While working on the project On Milk and People, I became acquainted with the many issues faced by farming families and learned a lot about agricultural policy, the dairy industry, and economic developments.

I became deeply aware of the social changes that would follow from the process of adopting the regulations of the European Union in Croatia. When I realized that one of the consequences of the development and adoption would be the disappearance of dairywomen from Zagreb’s markets, I decided, together with an NGO, to launch an initiative that would help protect the dairywomen as part of the cultural heritage and thus ensure their survival. For me, dairywomen are a paradigmatic part of Croatian social reality, representing so called ordinary people who have not adjusted well to times of great change.

Is it even possible to engage in the European leveling of economic standards in a way such as to preserve the important elements of local cultural identity? In collaboration with the not-for-profit organization BLOK, we began our initiative in the summer of 2002, with the aim of claiming the status of cultural heritage and the respective protection for the dairywomen of Zagreb. In the two years that followed we organized several public events and actions, undertook research spanning several months on the social and economic positions of these women, and presented the research results at an exhibition as well as within the framework of a small media campaign. We also set up a website. In order to have a positive impact during the course of administrative and political decision making, we invited various officials from different institutions to participate in a round table entitled “Can Zagreb dairywomen join the European Union?” which was held on 12 December 2003 at KIC – Cultural and Information Center in Zagreb.

Throughout 2000, some 500 women regularly travelled from the surrounding rural areas to Zagreb, mostly once or twice per week, to sell their dairy products at the city’s market places. In 2002, over 2000 family members benefitted from the work of the dairywomen. During September and October 2003, we interviewed 448 dairywomen at the six main market places in Zagreb. Through our questionnaire consisting of 41 items, we gathered information on their familial and financial situations. We published the results of the survey and the database in order for it to be accessed by all those interested, including institutions and the general public. In a follow-up study in 2008, we found that around 350 dairywomen were now working at the Zagreb markets. In 2020 the number fell under 300.

The Cheese and Cream exhibition in December 2003 was the central event through which we wanted to direct the focus of the general public to the issue of the dairywomen. Two happenings that we organized as part of the exhibition were designed to ensure media attention. Beba the Cow was brought to the city center for the exhibition opening and three dairywomen handed out cheese and cream to visitors for free. Thus a typical market situation was transferred to a gallery space with the presence of the media. We had developed contacts with journalists beforehand and established a network for our modest media campaign. The aim was to keep dairywomen at the center of public and media attention for a week. Our main media partner was the national TV program “Good morning Croatia”.

The home page of the project website featured The Declaration on Dairywomen in five languages. By signing the Declaration, one could support our initiative to ensure the future of dairywomen. We collected a total of 4000 signatures. The website included 474 links to the personal web pages of the Zagreb dairywomen selling their products at the city’s six largest markets. Each dairywoman was presented via photographs of herself and her products, and most had an audio statement and/or short video clip. People could search the database for a dairywoman whose products they wanted to buy through categories of weekday and market place locations. The database was comprehensive and precise as each dairywoman had her weekly schedule. A growing collection of stories and comments on cheese and cream and on dairywomen written by the public was published online. With these stories and comments, the website became a structurally important part of the exhibition. Each visitor was invited to contribute his/her story, comments and memories on dairywomen and related issues.

The Cheese and Cream exhibition functioned as an open office for the project at which support signatures were collected, along with people’s stories on dairywomen, and as a place where the dairywomen’ issues were discussed with different audiences. Besides myself, there was always another person in the gallery to welcome the visitors: to explain the position of the dairywomen, to encourage the visitors to sign the Declaration on Dairywomen, to familiarize them with the website, and to prompt them to write their dairywoman stories online. Besides the book of signatures, another important part was a series of over 600 wall mounted photo portraits of the dairywomen, to be gifted to the subjects that came to visit the show. At the close of the exhibition, the photo count showed that some 15% of the dairywomen had visited the gallery.

The Cheese and Cream exhibition was the final phase to an intensive year-long documentation and research project. As our intention was to introduce the issues of dairywomen to a wider, non-artistic audience, the show was created as a kind of open office. At the same time the exhibition was a place to present the initiatives concerning the protection of dairywomen undertaken to date: different actions, research, archives, website, as well as my artworks – videos, photographs and objects.

The show comprised several exhibits including the three-channel video installation Cheese and Cream with a video collage of short statements by approximately one hundred dairywomen in a total duration of 80 minutes; the installation Dishtowels of the Dairywomen of Zagreb with a collection of over 200 dishtowels belonging to the dairywomen and collected by exchanging old ones for new while handing out exhibition invitations at the markets; the Book of Requests for the 22nd Century with approximately 1200 signatures, which was exhibited in front of the dishtowel installation; and 448 Questionnairescontaining our dairywoman database.

RELATED
Declaration of Milkmaids, 2002 (pdf or link opening page)
Cheese and Cream, documentary film, 42’, Factum Zagreb, 2013.
Link: watch film : https://vimeo.com/ondemand/cheeseandcream

Declaration on Milkmaids

Details

They sell their homemade fresh cheese and cream, and the tourists photograph them. They are one of the trademarks of our city. And yet in spite of all their hard work and the centuries they have been in the city, it is unlikely that they will survive the entry of Croatia into Europe. Europe wants refrigerated markets, and many of them will not be able to cope with the rise in price of their point of sale. Europe also makes demands about the quality of fresh milk, and outside the big farms these can only be met with great difficulty and expense. The way the big farms are developing, it could well be that in a hundred years no one is going to touch a cow or talk with it . And those who talk with the cows will gradually vanish. And perhaps those who talk with each other at the marketplaces. Can all this progress be handled in such a way as to preserve the little things that mean a lot to many of us? Like fresh cheese and cream from hand to hand? With a word or two? How're the children? Your husband got better? Pension still not come?... and so on for years, once or twice a week. Every elderly milkmaid would tell you, she has her steady customers who have been buying from her for twenty, forty or even fifty years. Buying fresh cheese and cream in this way is a special form of life and communication. The relationship between a milkmaid and her customer has often been developed through several generations of their two families. Although fresh cheese is to be found on the menus in the neighbouring countries, consuming fresh cheese and cream in the way we do, is an autochthonous custom of northern Croatia. The milkmaids are important, and Zagreb would not be what it is without them. If Zagreb loses its milkmaids, it will be like the city of Vienna giving up its famous cafes. The Zagreb dairywomen have been significantly reduced in number over the last twenty years. The ones that are still working keep 30% less cows than in the late 1980s. Compared to the year of 1990, they sell half as much cheese and cream. Concerning the introduction of refrigerators in the marketplaces - if the cost of their place of business increases, only 14% of them will try to continue the activity. 35% of Zagreb milkmaids are in their 60ies or older. Only 8,6% of them have a successor to continue the activity. Although the Zagreb market of fresh cheese and cream has been experiencing great difficulties , its cultural importance is now bigger than ever. In most of the developed countries milkmaids have disappeared a long time ago. In Zagreb there are still approximately 500 milkmaids coming to the town once or twice a week. The restructuring of the Croatian economy going on since the early 1990s, as well the parallel process of adjustments to the European Union economic and legal standards, tend to raze milkmaids to the ground of our place on Earth. There is a danger that one by-product of convergence will be the disappearance of the traditional occupation of the milkmaid. As the world is entering the age of the genetically modified foods, we state that our milkmaids are no threat to any economic progress. We state that the survival of the Zagreb milkmaids has to be secured. We suggest and we demand legal protection for our milkmaids and their fresh cheese and cream, as an indigenous product and custom of ours. We demand that the administrative decision-making process exempt the dairywomen from the mainstream of adjustments to the European Union standards. We suggest that the city authorities take care to subsidize the refrigerators at the marketplaces, as well as improve the conditions at the marketplaces to the benefit of the milkmaids. We want this traditional occupation, a particular form of the cultural heritage, be preserved . It might thus be possible to make sure that the milkmaids remain in our marketplaces, making their valuable contribution to the cultural identity of the city of Zagreb. If you feel that the secure future of both the dairywomen and the cheese and cream of this kind of quality can and should be looked after, then do sign your name in our Book of Requests for the 22nd Century, and we will send it on to those responsible. Milkmaids for Europe! Vive le fromage au lait cru! (Yes, I want to sign the declaration.)

CREDITS
The Cheese and Cream project was produced by [BLOK] Local Base for Culture Refreshment, Zagreb. Created by and project idea: Kristina Leko. Curator and main producer: Vesna Vuković. WEBSITE: Design: Lina Kovacević; Programming: Aleksandar Erkalović & Marcell Mars; Video and audio documentation from the markets: Ana Husman, Kristina Leko; Choice of videostills and image processing: Kristina Leko. STATISTICAL DATA: Survey at the market places: Petra Pokrovac, Dalia Cvetković, Jelena Jelinić, Vesna Vuković, Kristina Leko; Data processing: Vesna Vuković, Miroslav Jerković EXHIBITION: Curator of the exhibition and events at the PM Gallery: Iva Radmila Janković; Photo on the billboard: Boris Cvjetanović. Project supported by: Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia, Cultural Office to the City of Zagreb. Further support: Good morning, Croatia / Tanja Šimić, Ivana Vida, Nikolina Zlatković; City Office for Agriculture and Forestry / dr.vet. Josip Janeš; HSM informatics; Art material; Belina; Multimedia Institute mi2.

GENRE&FORMATS
Project: activist project; research-documentary and communication art project; community project; project with specific social groups; temporary interventions in public and semi-public space; multimedia exhibition. Artwork/s and artifacts: actions in public space, media campaign, website, data base, multimedia exhibition including video works, photographs, texts, objects, gallery happenings and interactions with audiences.