AIRLAB/2014

SPRING period
STORYTELLING/ as artistic practice

Focused on Storytelling, the artists in residency at AIRLAB 2014 during the spring period have developed projects which deal with personal and collective narratives. They challenge historical artifacts and statements by engaging images and texts from past and present. The artists use the exhibition venue, Piramida [1] as the ground for two and three dimensional installations, performances and interactive communication.

Adela JUSIC

Tell us something about your new life
Digital photo collage and text

The project is inspired by the book "Albanian women on the road to Socialism”. The artist encounters the book during her research on the Albanian women life during the communist regime. Published in 1965 by the Presidency of the General Council of the Women's Union of Albania, the book/album consists mainly of photographs of women as workers in agriculture and industry, as well as scientists, artists etc. Although this was considered a time of great changes for women in Albania, the project aim is to examine the effects of these changes on women. By using contemporary academic research and literature, Juŝić question the official political representation of the "progress” and "emancipation" of women in the Socialist Albania.

Enton KACA

Questions
30 min Performance

Based on the what gives life to an artistic/ esthetic process, the performace of Enton Kaca with Loredana Gjeçi  is in search of" the truth" .Focused on the relationship we have with the model or the given role,the author/s aim is to explore dramaturgy  as a medium and the narrtion as a process, by dismantling rate rules and  exploring  the human communication throught texts of Çehof and italian author Alda Merin

Keto LOGUA

Transplantation or moving from to/ 2014
Cut in the wall, concrete sand installation
Dimensions: Variable

“Transplantation or moving from to” consist of traces of physical intervention in the exhibition space and materiality resulting from this act. The artist approaches the exhibition space a ’bizarre communist monument’, which stands as the artifact of the Albanian socio-political past and present as a sculptural material.

Carved triangle in the wall enables a negative space on the surface of the interior wall. Mass released from the removal, separation of the layer is transformed into a positive form of three dimensional sculptures in the space.
The absent body is materialized. Space and the “material” complement one another in a sort of an exchange or even transplantation of their substances.

HAVE IT (Alketa Sylaj, Hana Qena, Lola Sylaj, Vesa Qena)

“When father wept, mother washed my eyes"
4 channels Color Video Installation
No Sound

The girls of Haveit will present for the public a 4 channels video installation which explores the position of the man in the Albanian tradition.
The following sentences originally written in “Geg” Albanian dialect are the gist of their project.

“Even if you are going to confess me all the pain you have passed through, I am not going to cry. I am a man, a strong one, and I won’t drop a tear 
Cry you cry, your eyes will become beautiful after,
While you weeping, my mother washed my eyes”

The AIRLAB program is made possible through the generous support of the Network Partnership 3 – year grant of Princ Claus Culturfund .

Thanks go to the Albanian Ministry of Culture, for facilitating the access to the event venue, PIRAMIDA.

Piramida: International Center of Culture was opened on October 14, 1988. The 17,000 meters square complex was designed to be “The Enver Hoxha Museum" and served as such for very short period. After 1991 Piramida became a conference center and exhibition venue. In 2009 the Albanian government decides to demolish the structure in order to make place for the new Albanian Parliament building. The decision was stepped back by the strong opposition of renowned local and international architects and a 6000 signatures petition of the Tirana citizens. Prior to being designated as the seat of the Albanian parliament, the structure was supposed to be turned into an opera theater. However construction works were stopped and destination of the building is still undecided.