Design Map · Eindhoven
Vlahija
Graduation project by Julia Egermann at Design Academy Eindhoven, 2026. Shown during Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven on Design Map, location F5.
Home to part of the Burgenland-Croatian minority, the Vlahija is made up of twelve remote villages on the Austro-Hungarian border. The Vlahi culture is defined largely by its language. Fluency in the local Vlahi dialect declines with each generation, leaving the culture increasingly vulnerable to assimilation.
In response to this loss and the lack of documentation, ‘Vlahija’ uses postcards to record what is still there: memories, knowledge and traditions. Each perforated card is sent as a pair. One half is kept by the receiver and shares a fact about Burgenland-Croatian culture and history. The other contains a personal prompt, to be answered in Vlahi and returned. The replies form a collective record of the language and the people who still speak it. Part of a family from the Vlahija but raised outside the region, Julia Egerman facilitates this process as both insider and outsider.