Dr. Mela Žuljević

PhD-Researcher, ZZF

Visualisation Lab and Researcher, IfL

Projects

Bio
Mela Zuljevic is a design researcher with a PhD in architecture (UHasselt, Belgium). In her doctoral thesis, she explored the uses of the past in design – by engaging with postcolonial and critical development studies to address how the past is mobilised in staging visions of development. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography, working at the intersection of design, cartography and landscape research. Her research project looks at cartographic legacies of international diplomacy and peace-making in Bosnia and Herzegovina, focusing on how they materialise in the landscape. Besides her research project, she coordinates the Multi-Perspective Visualisation Laboratory for Peace and Conflict Cartography (VisLab) of the KonKoop network.

Previously, she studied Design and Visual Communications at the University of Sarajevo. She worked as an assistant professor at the Interior Design Department of the ‘Dzemal Bijedic’ University of Mostar. As a co-founder and coordinator of the Abart art collective, she explored artistic and curatorial practices in public space, focusing on the post-war division and reconstruction of Mostar. Through her participation in various design projects and artistic collaborations, she gained significant experience in visual, artistic and curatorial practices and methodologies (for example, see Transition Landscape Atlas​).

Research interests
  • Visual communication
  • Landscapes, development
  • Politics of design
Main publications

  Žuljević, Mela;  Carabelli, Giulia. Post-reconstruction enclosures: an infrastructural perspective on the post-conflict landscape of the Old City (Mostar). In: Landscape Research, 48 (2023), 6, pp. 1-14

Žuljević, Mela; Roosen, Barbara; Huybrechts, Liesbeth. Thinging with the Past: Co-designing a slow road network by mediating between the historical landscape and the design space. In: CoDesign (2022), pp. 1-20

Žuljević, Mela; Huybrechts, Liesbeth. Historicising Design Space: Uses of the past in participatory prefiguring of spatial development. In: Design Studies, 73 (2021), pp. 1-18

Žuljević, Mela; Bogojević, Anja; Puzić; Amila. False stories from the history of Mostar. In: Space and Polity, 23 (2019), 2, pp. 216-228

Foto: © private photograph

Contact

 Schongauerstr. 9, 04328 Leipzig

+49 341 600 55-145

  m_zuljevic@leibniz-ifl.de

 Mela Žuljević at IfL

Home Institution

IfL – Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography

https://www.leibniz-ifl.de/