Elizabeth Coop: Tell us a bit about your new book, Blokovi-Novi Beograd
Lola Paprocka: Blokovi is a photographic series exploring the New Belgrade apartment blocks and their residents. The book works to combine both portraiture and images of Brutalist estates – both are real interests of mine. I was keen to include some social documentation in there too, to capture spontaneous interactions with strangers on the streets. But, these social interactions would always come secondary, the Brutalist architecture would inform the overarching narrative.

EC: How did the project come about?
LP: The conversation started with my best friend Mima Bulj, who wanted me as ‘an outsider’, to capture her hometown in the way I saw and experienced it for the very first time. Mima was born in Belgrade and lived there until she was eight years old before moving to New Zealand with her family. I was born in Poland before moving to the UK in my late teens. Mima and I have always talked very openly about our struggles with finding a true sense of place, feeling stuck somewhere between the Eastern and Western worlds. It also goes without saying that I have a little bit of an obsession with Brutalist architecture and was immediately drawn into the context of this project. I travelled there one summer to begin documenting. After meeting some of the locals and beginning to shoot, the series seemed to move along very organically.

EC: You were born and raised in Poland, has this influenced Blokovi in any way?
LP: Yes, definitely! I was born and raised in estate blocks myself and my Polish heritage has certainly left me with a nostalgia for estates and “concrete everything”. I guess this was the main reason Mima approached me for this collaboration of ideas.

Mennonite Diamond in a Square Quilt (1890s) $1,425

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