• character-studies-preview.mp4

    Zone Collective (Kirila Cvetkovska and Megan Hoetger), Studies in Character Development: A Chronicle of Experiments, 2024. Design by Karoline Świeżyński.

  • Two hands hold a book open. Across the two pages, there is a photograph of objects on top of a black background. A red lego is discernible in the middle. White text appears at the bottom, on both pages.

    csd01a.jpg

    Zone Collective (Kirila Cvetkovska and Megan Hoetger), Studies in Character Development: A Chronicle of Experiments, 2024. Design by Karoline Świeżyński.

  • Two hands hold a book open. The left page is black, with white text at the bottom. The right page has a blurry image with a diagram, handwritten in black, on top. There is some text, written digitally in black, at the bottom.

    csd01b.jpg

    Zone Collective (Kirila Cvetkovska and Megan Hoetger), Studies in Character Development: A Chronicle of Experiments, 2024. Design by Karoline Świeżyński.

  • Four people sit around a table, on top of which there is printed material and pens and pencils. There two overhead projectors, one on each side of the table, projecting images to a wall. One of the people is writing on a sheet of paper, whose image is being projected on the wall.

    csd02a-karoline-swiezynski.jpeg

    Workshop documentation. Zone Collective (Kirila Cvetkovska and Megan Hoetger), Studies in Character Development: A Chronicle of Experiments, KIOSK Rotterdam, October 2024. Photo: Karoline Świeżyński.

  • Handwritten notes, in several colours, have been written in a transparency sheet and left on top of an overhead projector's stage. A hand is partially visible, holding the corner of the sheet.

    csd02b-merve-bedir.jpg

    Workshop documentation. Zone Collective (Kirila Cvetkovska and Megan Hoetger), Studies in Character Development: A Chronicle of Experiments, KIOSK Rotterdam, October 2024. Photo: Merve Bedir.

  • A person's hands and arms are partially visible. They are writing, with a purple marker, on a transparency sheet, under a photograph. The sheet is on an overhead projector's stage.

    csd02c-philippa-driest.jpeg

    Workshop documentation. Zone Collective (Kirila Cvetkovska and Megan Hoetger), Studies in Character Development: A Chronicle of Experiments, KIOSK Rotterdam, October 2024. Photo: Philippa “Flip” Driest.

  • Several sheets of handwritten notes and printouts with notes have been laid on a table.

    csd03-philippa-driest.jpeg

    Workshop documentation. Zone Collective (Kirila Cvetkovska and Megan Hoetger), Studies in Character Development: A Chronicle of Experiments, KIOSK Rotterdam, October 2024. Photo: Philippa “Flip” Driest.

  • A white sheet of paper with notes and drawings is at the edge of a table. There are pens and pencils around it. The hand of the person sitting in front of the sheet can be see on the bottom right corner.

    csd04a-merve-bedir.jpg

    Workshop documentation. Zone Collective (Kirila Cvetkovska and Megan Hoetger), Studies in Character Development: A Chronicle of Experiments, KIOSK Rotterdam, October 2024. Photo: Merve Bedir.

  • Several sheets with handwritten notes, printouts with notes and a photograph have been laid on a table. There are also pens and pencils, three glass and two scissors. Five people are partially visible around the table.

    csd04b-merve-bedir.jpg

    Workshop documentation. Zone Collective (Kirila Cvetkovska and Megan Hoetger), Studies in Character Development: A Chronicle of Experiments, KIOSK Rotterdam, October 2024. Photo: Merve Bedir.

  • Several sheets with handwritten notes, printouts with notes and a photograph have been laid on a table. There are also pens and pencils, a glass and a can of beer. Three people are partially visible around the table, one of them has their hand on top of one of the sheets.

    csd04c-merve-bedir.jpg

    Workshop documentation. Zone Collective (Kirila Cvetkovska and Megan Hoetger), Studies in Character Development: A Chronicle of Experiments, KIOSK Rotterdam, October 2024. Photo: Merve Bedir.

  • Several sheets with handwritten notes, printouts with notes and a photograph have been laid on a table. There are also pens and pencils, a smartphone and a can of beer. The laps and arms of three people, who are sitting around the table, are visible.

    csd04d-philippa-driest.jpeg

    Workshop documentation. Zone Collective (Kirila Cvetkovska and Megan Hoetger), Studies in Character Development: A Chronicle of Experiments, KIOSK Rotterdam, October 2024. Photo: Philippa “Flip” Driest.

  • character-studies-reading-1.mp4

    Workshop documentation. Zone Collective (Kirila Cvetkovska and Megan Hoetger), Studies in Character Development: A Chronicle of Experiments, KIOSK Rotterdam, October 2024. Video: Philippa “Flip” Driest.

Since 2016, Zone Collective has been developing a method of “collective annotation”, which approaches archival research as a site for discussion and shared note-taking. Taking the narrative form of a children’s story book, Studies in Character Development: A Chronicle of Experiments whimsically weaves together documentation from three years of experiments with methods of storytelling stories that feel untellable. Characters open the possibility for (infra)structural conditions to take on voices, gestures, and affective lives. As such, they are a critical site for deconstruction of conventional history-writing techniques.

For the publication’s launch, a character workshop was held at KIOSK Rotterdam⁠⁠(opens in a new tab)⁠ in October 2024. With their characteristic use of transparencies and two overhead projectors, Zone Collective opened their collective annotation practice to workshop participants, inviting them to notate and note-take the book’s pages along with the collective. Together, they continued thinking about characters, roles, and the stories we tell ourselves.

Zone Collective is a collaborative research platform established in 2016 by independent cultural practitioner Kirila Cvetkovska and historian-curator Megan Hoetger as a space to intercede into historiographic conventions for understanding cultural production in geopolitical sites marked by their grey zone ‘border status(es).’

Studies in Character Development is designed by Karoline Świeżyński. The book was self-published in 2024 in an edition of 46 copies. It was produced with Trudy Dorrepaal, printed and bound by DD-MC Digitale Druk in Raalte (NL). Zone Collective extends deepest gratitude to designer Karoline Świeżyński for her long-term support and dramaturg Biljana Radinoska for the ongoing character development collaboration. Special thanks as well to Aram Lee and Quenton Miller from When Site Lost the Plot (2021-2023), Amsterdam for their commission
of the research installation Shadow Zones: Experimental Cinema History in Yugoslavia; or, a Cinema and a History Made and Unmade by Maps (July - October 2021); to Julia Morandeira Arrizabalaga, Irene Calabuch Mirón, Thomas Orbon, and BAK — basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht for their support and facilitation of the Zoning Play Complex workshop (November 2022); and to the Prince Claus Fund for making the publication possible. And finally, much appreciation to Philippa “Flip” Driest at KIOSK Rotterdam⁠⁠(opens in a new tab)⁠ for hosting the launch workshop.

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