Concept / Directing / Camera / Text: Adnan Softić
Video editing / Sound: Nina Softić With: Ruth Merjem Softić
Commissioned by:
ifa – Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen within
the framework of the touring exhibition EVROVIZION.CROSSING STORIES AND SPACES.
Curated by: Sabina Klemm, Sanja Kojić-Mladenov
SALONICA traces the disappearance of a pluralistic self-understanding in Thessaloniki — a city once shaped by the coexistence of Jews, Muslims, and Christians. With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire (1912–1923) and the rise of nationalist ideologies, not only the map of the region changed, but also the memory inscribed in the city’s streets.
The destruction of Europe’s largest Jewish cemetery — more than 300,000 graves — became a defining act of this erasure. Its tombstones were scattered across the city and repurposed as building material for churches, theatres, swimming pools, and eventually for the foundations of Aristotle University. History was not simply forgotten; it was built over.
At the centre of the work stands the transmitted story of Madame Sara, a Jewish woman and spirit medium who once spoke with the dead and was protected by all religious communities. Her voice represents a lost culture of shared remembrance — a way of honouring the dead that transcended communal boundaries.
SALONICA follows the traces of this silenced past and asks: Who still speaks with the dead today?
Inspired by: Isaac Jack Lévy & Rosemary Lévy Zumwalt, Madame Sara: A Spirit Medium Between Two Worlds Mark Mazower, Salonika: The City of Ghosts
