Turbo Dioxide

I've been working on the multimedia project Turbo Dioxide with Mirko Zarkovic since 2019. The name of the project illustrates the hybridisation of regional turbo folk subculture that emerged in the late 80s, flourishing in the 90s during the Yugoslav wars. Turbo Dioxide documents the aftermath of this subculture, understanding it as some sort of turbo folk on steroids, similar to the ‘Squatting Slav’/gopnik aesthetic. For me, the project is a reinvestigation of male identity – and its roles in patriarchal Balkan society 'on steroids', especially in the Serbian context. From the position of a voyeur, I try to demystify this turbo-male image so as to get to know my own alter ego – one that could potentially fulfil social norms and expectations. The project started through posting images and videos on Instagram; it spontaneously became participatory, as people started to notice these codes and send in similar photographs. It gradually evolved into an extensive archive, which can be divided into four series: Turbo Dioxide aesthetics in public life; the most frequently worn New Yorker brand jacket in Novi Sad; public pissing; and screenshots of porn. Ironically, Turbo Dioxide later absorbed and implemented some elements of the aesthetic it questions – through the streetwear that Mirko and I now design and wear.

Queer Snapshots is a photographic project that explores the unstable boundary between visibility and invisibility in contemporary Serbian masculinity and queer identity. Emerging from two parallel bodies of work—Turbo Dioxide, a long-term street photography project documenting anonymous male figures, and commissioned photography for Belgrade Pride and EuroPride—the project brings these seemingly separate visual worlds into direct confrontation. Since 2019, Turbo Dioxide has focused on observing men in public space: unposed, often photographed from a distance, reduced to fragments of bodies and gestures. These images examine a form of masculinity shaped by post-socialist transition, cultural nostalgia, and inherited social codes. The gaze in this work is intentionally indirect—mediated through distance, anonymity, and restraint—revealing both fascination and disconnection. In contrast, the Pride-related work operates within a space of visibility, where identity is performed, declared, and collectively affirmed. Here, the camera is no longer hidden; it becomes part of an exchange. Subjects are aware of being seen and often actively participate in that visibility. Queer Snapshots brings these two modes of looking into dialogue. Rather than presenting them as opposites—hidden versus visible, straight versus queer—the project focuses on the tensions, overlaps, and contradictions between them. It asks: what remains unseen even in spaces of visibility? How does desire operate across these boundaries? And how does the same gaze shift when moving between environments that demand either concealment or exposure?