OFF THE RAILS. Final event of the Route Biographies project

On 10 November 2025, the Atrium of ZRC hosted a three-part event titled IZTIRJENO (“OFF THE RAILS”), which brought together a photography exhibition by Ajda Schmidt, the launch of the new online magazine FootNotes under the ZRC Press, and a round table presenting the findings of the research project Route Biographies (ZRC SAZU, 2022–2025). The project, funded by the Slovenian Research and Innovation Agency and led by Nataša Rogelja Caf, a member of the research programme Heritage on the Margins, explored the role of walking and writing in the research process and sought to re-assemble an understanding of Istria by establishing a dialogue between borders and paths.

What emerges are biographies of selected routes, shaped by the vitality of interweaving, by the sprouting of beginning–endings, and by a departure from linearity and purity. These biographies—threads of diverse trajectories (infrastructural lines, waterways, heritage trails, wandering tales, archaeological traces, migrant routes)—draw on years of earlier research and, within the project, are expanded through the medium of a walking-writing seminar called a hodinar: collective, creative-research walks that stand at the heart of this exhibition. What is on display is an in-between step: our words and sketches, alongside audio, video, and photographic notes, unfolded in three constellations — a photographic exhibition, a collection of essays, and cartographies of steps. At the event, these were brought together in three segments: a photography exhibition, an online collection of essays, and the mapping of footsteps, all rounded off by a round table discussion featuring Nataša Rogelja Caf (project lead), Marjeta Pisk (GNI ZRC SAZU), Jure Gombač (ISIM ZRC SAZU), Dimitrij Mlekuž Vrhovnik (Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana), Nataša Gregorič Bon (IAPS ZRC SAZU), and Igor Rogelja (UCL).

Photo by Živa Caf