Mama & Zastava M48 (2026)

In socialist Yugoslavia, military preparedness formed part of everyday education through compulsory school lessons on defence and self-protection. In Mama & Zastava M48 (2026), Lana Mesić revisits this history through an encounter with her mother, who attended these classes as a teenager. To realise the work, Mesić obtained a temporary firearms permit to rent a Yugoslavian Zastava M48 rifle, following strict regulations around police approval, transport, and use. Within the domestic setting of her mother’s home, she asks her mother to handle the rifle, revealing how instructions remain in muscle long after the system itself disappeared.