about

Heritage Coexistence is a platform that gathers a series of site-specific events that foster conversations and explorations of the multilayered heritage environments where it occurs.

Each Heritage Coexistence event features a discussion around the history and transformation of the places it occurs in, and extend to include the broader reflections on heritage matters, oftten bringing together European and Indigenous points of view and considering its cultural, political and social implications, while alowing other types of heritage to emerge in the conversation. The main idea behind Heritage Coexistence is to bring together various ideas on heritage in an open-ended way. The intent is to spark a debate and pose questions rather than seek definite answers.

Each conversation is followed by experimental projections, using LIDAR technology, visually exploring the heritage elements in question and blending them into coexistence.

The main ideas around Heritage Coexistence, in the words of Professor Laurajane Smith, are to question the ‘authorised heritage discourse’ and ask ourselves how we think about heritage and to what end. What is the value of heritage for the present and the future? Why is it important to talk about it today? Which layers of heritage are we taking into consideration? What are the political implications of heritage? What is its relation with contemporary architecture in terms of value now? How can different modes of heritage coexist? What can we learn from each other? How do we challenge the concepts of heritage and open up conversations around it?

This project is led by Belgrade-born architect, researcher and curator Milica Božić. Milica is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie PhD Fellow at Politecnico di Milano and RMIT University through the double-degree REDI program. Her research explores and produces architectural exhibitions and other temporary spatial interventions that open experimental and open-ended heritage encounters.

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2025 @Open House Melbourne Stories of the City x OFFICE and 3553

2025
@Open House Melbourne

Stories of the City

x OFFICE and 3553