Savka Marenić

Savka Marenić (1993) is an artist, architect and researcher from Montenegro, based in Prague.  She studied architecture at the University of Montenegro in Podgorica and at the Faculty of Architecture at ČVUT in Prague, and is currently a PhD student in artistic research at the Department of Fine Arts at UMPRUM, under the supervision of artist Dominik Lang and art theorist Johana Lomová. Her practice sits at the intersection of architecture, education, writing and performance. Rather than treating space as a neutral backdrop, she approaches it as something continuously produced through relationships, everyday gestures, memories and stories.

Whether in gallery or public spaces, she creates performative, participatory interventions that question dominant urban imaginaries, opening space for narratives that remain marginalised, overlooked or unheard. She is developing a critical spatial pedagogy that brings these questions into teaching and mutual learning. She has led workshops at UMPRUM Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design, the Centre for Architecture and Metropolitan Planning (CAMP), Norma Space and Petrohradská kolektiv in Prague; the Faculty of Fine Arts (FaVU) in Brno; Architectural Manual JAM in Jihlava; and the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Montenegro.

In the Czech context, her work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions at etc. gallery, Entrance Gallery, the Jindřich Chalupecký Society, Meetfactory, Terén (Field of Performing Art) and Norma Space Gallery. She has also realised performative interventions for Art for the City and the Prague City Gallery (GHMP), as well as in public space in Denmark and Montenegro. She has written for the Czech magazines Earch, ERA21 and Umprum online, as well as for Protocole in Berlin. She is the author of the book Šepoty údolí (Whispers of the Valley, 2026), a work of urban docu-speculative fiction set in Prague’s Nusle. Developed in collaboration with local residents and passers-by, the book brings together personal and collective experiences that emerged during a single case study. She has also given lectures at the Prague City Gallery (GHMP), the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava (VŠMU), the Prague Quadrennial and the Arts and Theatre Institute in Prague.

Project title:

Narrating with Place: Stories as Spaces for Belonging, Learning and Participation

Her research investigates how spatial narratives emerge through site-specific performative situations and embodied experiences, and how these can foster new forms of belonging and open space for alternative forms of participation. Through carefully developed performative languages, she explores how architecture can become a narrative and performative medium, challenging established ways of perceiving, interpreting and planning the city.

In a single case study, she draws on site-specific performative art, acoustic ecology, feminist writing and participatory approaches to create opportunities for shared experiences of place that can generate new spatial narratives. Returning to the same site over an extended period, she investigates its overlooked histories, in-between layers, narratives and unrealised possibilities. Moving between fiction and documentary, her work gives voice to stories that remain suppressed.