AVENUE OF THE STARS

Eyes are wide open and looking at you in the series “Avenue of the Stars” of Suela Qoshja. In all photographs her eyes are opened and staring at you. It’s this kind of looking of a still image that follows you in every corner of the room or every direction you go. But there’s something specific with her look – she’s looking at you as if she’s trying to predict your next move and the way it will affect her. Dedicated to one of Albania’s worst social plagues of the last 10 years – the trafficking of women – and shot a few days after the artist’s neighbour was trafficked in Germany, the series is a re-appropriation and a mixture of classical standards of “beauty” and a continuous condition of discrimination of a social class –women. Between the elegant leaves of flowers she’s holding and the heavy make up of her face, a subtle critique of “innocence” permeates the whole series.

UNTITLED

In my work during the residency I have been collaborating with Martin Krenn, an artist from Austria. The questions I raise to him in the video are part of typical “over-the-table” discussions, which are taking place i.e. during a dinner in Albania. In the work, I have been interested to research how communication and creation of a dialogue is constructed differently in different societies.