Artists of the residencies
Vila 31 x Art Explora, Tirana
The new programme residences will host a dynamic cultural program designed in collaboration with local players, institutions, schools and associations, including exhibitions, workshops, film screenings, discussions, symposia and festivals open to all.
Some thirty artists will be selected each year by an international selection committee.
Residents 2025
First session - January to March
Japan
Learn more
Amie Barouh, Japan
The Alchemist
Biography
Amie Barouh was born in 1993, in Tokyo, Japan. She lives and works between France and Romania. She creates an experimental documentary giving voice to those at the margin of society. Her films take the form of 'Film diary', between documentaries and visual essays, aim first to transmit an experience, lived as it is. Her subjective editing espouses her heartbeat, reconstructing the full complexity of documenting the world to which we do not belong. Amie Barouh’s work has been presented in numerous institutions including Villa Medici Film Festival (Italy, 2022), Biennale de la jeune creation (France, 2022), Emerige Revelations (France, 2022), FilMadrid Festival (Spain, 2019), and Vision du Réel Festival (Switzerland, 2019).
Residency project
Through “The Alchemist”, Amie Barouh wants to archive the resistance of marginalized people through magic tricks; keeping in mind concerns about social boundaries and respecting their cultural norms. Belief; faith, affects the perception we have. That is why she wants to work around magic, the art of manipulation of reality and belief. What you think is real, is not really real. The reality is not what you think. Magic as healing, magic as a political tool, magic as resistance, magic as making miracles, magic as an access to another way of thinking. Amie Barouh would like to combine fieldwork of meeting the different minority communities with her artistic explorations of video ; journaling and use of magic. In her work, she links the need for beliefs with the resilience of discriminated minorities.
Albania
Learn more
Armando Duçellari, Albania
overlapping remnants
Biography
Armando Duçellari, was born in 1990 in Durrës, Albania. He lives and works in Bremen, Germany. His artistic practice focuses on the contrast of the viewer’s reaction in the context of art and during the production of an artwork in public space. He works on the relationship between space and time through mediums based on time, like Photography, Stop-Motion Animation, Video and Performance.
Armando Duçellari’s work has been exhibited at Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst (Germany, 2021), Osthaus-Museum Hagen (Germany, 2017). He participated in residencies at Cité Internationale des Arts (France, 2022), and UNIDEE - Cittadellarte / Art House Shkodër (Italy / Albania, 2017).
Residency project
The project “overlapping remnants” aims to examine memory as a dynamic process that intertwines past perceptions with present realities, offering a deeper understanding of the continuous interplay between different eras. It explores the relationship between memory and reality through the personal experiences of a family member who worked at Vila 31 from 1974 to 1982.
By juxtaposing past and present, the project highlights the Vila 31 transformation over time and thereby aims to document and preserve individual memory by capturing detailed recollections and comparing them with the current state of the building. Personal remembrance together with present-day visuals, will offer viewers a comprehensive tour that tries to connect the gap between memory and reality.
Albania
Learn more
Arnilda Kyçyku, Albania
Tirana Preserves Culture and Tradition
Biography
Arnilda Kyçyku was born in 1997, in Albania. She lives and works in Tirana. Her painting works focuses on personal experiences and the reality that surrounds her, which will be showcased in her upcoming second solo exhibition at the same gallery in September.
Her work has been presented in several institutions, including Tirana Art Gallery, (Albania, 2023), Tirana International Contemporary Art Festival (Albania, 2023), Jordan Misja Art School Gallery (Albania, 2024), and Vlora Gallery (Albania, 2022). She is currently resident at the Tirana Art Gallery.
Residency project
The project “Tirana Preserves Culture and Tradition” aims to capture and celebrate the enduring cultural heritage and traditions of Tirana through a series of oil paintings. The project focuses on how Tirana has managed to keep its cultural identity intact despite the pressures of modernization. Paintings will showcase how the city blends its rich history and traditions with contemporary life. Special highlight will be given to persistence of traditional practices, clothing, and festivals within the modern urban landscape. By capturing these elements, artist aims to show how important they are in keeping the city’s identity alive. This project will provide a visual representation of how Tirana’s unique cultural past continues to coexist with its evolving present.
Italy
Learn more
Genny Petrotta, Italy
Hak (vengeance)
Biography
Genny Petrotta was born in 1990, in Italy. She lives and works in Palermo. Her work centers on the poetic reinterpretation of history and minority narratives, with a particular focus on her italien arbëreshë cultural heritage. Favoring video installation and performance as her primary media, Petrotta employs a cinematic process of project construction, writing, and filming.
Her work has been exhibited in various institutions, including Fondazione Studio Rizoma (Italy, 2024), Autostrada Biennale, (Kosovo, 2023-2024), Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, (Italy, 2024), Postane, (Turkey, 2023) and Manifesta 12 (Italy, 2018). Since 2016, she has been a member of the artistic collective Il Pavone.
Residency project
"Hak (revenge)" project explores the complex history and social dynamics of the Burrnesha, socially recognized female-to-male cross-dressers from Albania and Kosovo. Using a multidisciplinary approach, the project engages the Burrnesha community through participatory methods, with Shakespeare's "Hamlet" serving as a poetic framework for dialogue and exploration. Genny Petrotta’s early fascination with the Burrnesha was sparked by discovering their role in the Kanun, a customary code that governs traditional Albanian norms.
As part of her identity research, she aims to reimagine "Hamlet" through their experiences, intertwining Shakespeare's narrative with the personal stories of the Burrnesha, which are often misrepresented by Western media.
France
Learn more
Marianne Marić, France
Monument body
Biography
Marianne Marić was born in 1982, in France. She lives and works between Paris and Strasbourg. She develops a transdisciplinary body of work in which she deconstructs stereotypes to exploit them and bend them to her will. Her photographic practice is a performative one – she inserts herself into the heart of the model, she photographs through premeditated tricks at the risk of crossing the barriers of her own intimacy.
Her work has been presented in numerous institutions including the Ostrava Art Center (Czech Republic, 2022), Moly-Sabata, Fondation Albert Gleizes (France, 2020), the Athens Biennale (Greece, 2018), the National Gallery (Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2018), the Museum of Contemporary Art Vojvodina (Serbia, 2014), and the Centre d’Art Contemporain de Brétigny-sur-Orge (France, 2009).
Residency project
“Monument Body” project is a continuation of the research Marianne Marić began in 2012 on the Balkans, in collaboration with scientists, researchers and artists.
Her work focuses on the complex past of Albania, a country marked by a rich and tumultuous history. She is particularly interested in the deep link between Albania and the History of Photography, notably through the legacy of the Marubi family, who played an essential role in the visual documentation of the country. The aim of this project is to revisit and reinterpret the history of Albania through a new series of photographs. These images will highlight two essential aspects: on a hand, the statues (the ‘memory of stone’) and monuments that embody the country's official and monumental history, and on the other, the history of women (the ‘memory of flesh’), which represents the human and personal dimension within local landscapes.
Ukraine
Learn more
Stanislava Pinchuk, Ukraine
Post C/ards
Biography
Stanislava Pinchuk was born in 1988, in Kharkiv, Ukraine. She lives and works in Sarajevo. Her work is primarily occupied with data-mapping conflict in landscape, as well as the place of linguistic translation in historic narrative. She works with architecture, large-scale installation, sculpture, film & photography.
Stanislava Pinchuk’s work has been showcased in great shows including the ACMI (Australia, 2024), the HE Museum (China, 2022-2023) and the 14th Manifesta Biennale (Kosovo, 2022). She also produced artworks for several commissions, including a permanent mural installation in London, in 2022.
Residency project
The proposed works will take the place of a suite of photographs and performances, undertaken within the loaded context of Enver Xoxha’s Vila. Disseminated as post-cards, the images which document these actions aim to interrogate exactly what the idea of ‘post-communism’ and specifically, what the ‘post-communist body’ may mean.
We often speak of a ‘post-colonialism’ or a ‘post-communism’ - but how exactly does it ‘leave’? And at what exact moment does it ‘leave’? The following works are inspired by 17th Century Slavic burials of the suspected vampiric un-dead, theories of hypnosis, anti-occupationist resistance & communist-era redactions of postal communications.
Albania
Learn more
Gerta Xhaferaj, Albania
Asylum of the Silent Recall
Biography
Gerta Xhaferaj was born in 1993 in Fier, Albania. She lives and works between Tirana and Basel. Employing both spontaneity and methodology, her artistic focus lies in a historical and documentary style, seeking profound engagement with specific realities to extract intense aesthetic experiences such as: localities, dynamic of urban landscape, popular culture, transformation of city and self and social justice.
Gerta Xhaferaj’s work has been presented in numerous institutions including Kunsthaus Baselland (Switzerland, 2024), ΜΙΕΤ Goethe intitute (Greece, 2024), Galeria e Bregdetit (Albania, 2024), Larnaca Biennale (Cyprus, 2023), Manifesta Biennial 14 (Kosovo, 2022).
Residency project
"Asylum of the Silent Recall" extends research begun two years ago when Gerta Xhaferaj relocated to a new country, distancing from her family. The project incorporates 47 hours of childhood video footage, archival documents, and interviews, capturing moments like family dinners, weddings, and fireworks. The footage features recurring floral images—inserted by artist’s father—who censored blurry scenes with still-life roses, possibly reflecting his experiences during Albania's turbulent transition.
The project explores themes of memory, identity, and censorship, linking Albania's communist past with its democratic present. It includes a study of the dictator's villa, now a cultural space, and the network of bunkers symbolizing the era's paranoia and protectionism. This exploration will continue through archival research and architectural plans, aiming to reveal deeper narratives and connections within Tirana's evolving landscape.
Second session - May to July
Albania, France
Learn more
Erdiola Mustafaj, Albania
Extended Cham dialect
Biography
Erdiola Mustafaj was born in 1992 in Elbasan, Albania. She lives and works between Paris and Albania. Her artwork explores the relationship between time, language and technical image - with a focus on photography. Recently working with sound installations and video, she appropriates personal archives and collective memories to discuss the intellectual and political history of her country.
Erdiola Mustafaj’s work has been presented in numerous institutions including Zeta Contemporary Art Center (Albania, 2024), “Rencontres de la jeune photographie internationale” (France, 2022 / China 2024), Fondazione Stelline (Italy, 2019) and Shkodra Arthouse and Marubi Museum (Albania, 2019).
Anne Bourrasse, France
Biography
Anne Bourrassé was born in 1991, in France. She lives and works in Paris. She is an independent curator and writer at the crossroad of the visual arts and the humanities. She was director of exhibitions and artists’ studios at Le Consulat Voltaire cultural center in Paris (2021-2023). In 2019, she co-founded the association Contemporaines to combat gender inequalities in contemporary art. She has produced exhibitions, published texts and completed residencies for cultural institutions and Galleries including Le Manège (Sénégal, 2023); The Polygon (Canada, 2023); Jousse Entreprise (France, 2024); Three Shadows Photography Art Center (Chine, 2021).
Residency project
The residency project aims to extend the heritage of the language and its complex history through contemporary visual, audio and written interpretations. This project is based on the way in which evolutions and disappearances within the language are the main witnesses to the individual and collective history, particularly for the Albanian Cham minority. This research will be conducted in collaboration with the typography department of the Academy of fine arts in Tirana and the Academy of Albanological Studies / “Qendra e Studimeve Albanologjike”. They’ll collect oral narratives from south Albania villages, then focusing on the creation of a video work that would consist of the recording of a three-voice performance combining different forms of language.
Romania, Switzerland
Learn more
Mona Vatamanu & Florin Tudor, Romania, Switzerland
Between Vernacular and Utopia
Biography
Artists Mona Vatamanu and Florin Tudor artists have worked together since 2000. Mona Vatamanu was born in 1968, in Constanta, Roumania, and Florin Tudor was born in 1974, in Geneva. They work and live in Bucuresti.
« The artists do not impose on the viewer any preconceived social framework. Their practice consists of attentive observation and taking notice of material elements of reality. The work of the artists with such material can be a starting point for questioning social relations, economic changes, political conflicts. » (Joanna Sokolowska)
Mona Vatamanu and Florin Tudor work has been presented in numerous institutions including KADIST (USA, 2024), GfZK Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst Leipzig (Gerrmany, 2018), Centre Pompidou (France, 2014), 5th Berlin Biennial, KW Institute for Contemporary Art (Gerrmany, 2008) and 52nd Venice Biennial (Italy, 2007).
Residency project
During the period of the residency, Mona Vatamanu & Florin Tudor will research the recent history, architecture and vernacular urbanism of Tirana. The city’s multilayered constructed space is of particular interest: architecture projects - post-socialist, as well socialist and fascist and their relation with utopian visions. In the same time some other research paths will focus on a common strata of Albanian and Romanian culture and language, lines of dialogue that may be established between the history and material culture (textiles, photography). Artists plan to expand their research by connecting with local architects, urbanists and as well to contact and research in the photographic archive of the Marubi National Museum of Photography, Shkoder.
Germany
Learn more
Romana Schmalisch, Germany
My uncle
Biography
Romana Schmalisch was born in 1974, in Berlin. She lives and works in Berlin. Since 2010, she has collaborated with artist and filmmaker Robert Schlicht, born in 1975, in Berlin. They work on projects at the interface of film and theory to investigate how historical processes and societal structures may be represented in film. The theme of labour in capitalist societies is a focal point in their films, exhibitions and lecture series. Their works have been presented in numerous institutions including n.b.k. (Germany, 2024), Frac Sud (France, 2023), CCCOD (France, 2021 - 2022), 69. Berlinale (Germany, 2018), HKW (Germany, 2018 - 2019).
Residency project
“My Uncle” is a research project based on a personal story. It takes an encounter between people from different political systems as a case study to examine the broader questions of the (self)presentation and perception of societies, of their representability. Romana Schmalisch’s uncle was a member of the KPD/ML (Communist Party of Germany/Marxists-Leninists), one of the many ‘K-groups’ in West-Germany that had proliferated in the wake of 1968. Visiting Albania served as a projection screen for the revolutionary aspirations of these young West-Germans – so much so that they allowed themselves to only see what they wanted to see – consciously or not. For the Albanian officials, the credulous enthusiasm of their visitors provided them with an opportunity to put on display, to enact an image of their society as they wanted it to be seen, probably also as they would have wanted it to be.
Albania
Learn more
Vangjush Vellahu, Albania
Departing to find the language - returning to preserve the silence
Biography
Vangjush Vellahu was born in 1987 in Pogradec, Albania. He lives and works between Tirana and Berlin. Visual artist working with video, he was initially trained in traditional and digital graphics. He focuses on storytelling specific to particular communities. He uses travels to collect and tell stories that intertwine urban histories of entities that, from an ideological and political standpoint, remain on the margins of recognition. His work has been presented in numerous institutions and exhibitions, including at ZK/U (Germany, 2024), Manifesta Biennial (Kosovo, 2022), Times Art Center (Germany, 2021), Hamburger Bahnhof (Germany, 2018), and the National Gallery of Prague (Czech Republic, 2016).
Residency project
Vangjush Vellahu’s project explore the poetics and politics of departure, transition, and return. This research examine the physical and psychological attributes of land, water, and demarcation lines within Albania and its proximity, which are continuously being altered by a Eurocentric narrative. This project aims to visually articulate a personal journey that navigates through horizontal and vertical policies of territoriality, without fully resonating with either the departure from one place or the arrival at another. During the residency, he will outline a series of works across various formats and mediums, including writings, videos, and cartographies, to further explore the interplay of lines that cut through and cut across. This project will also act as an epilogue to Vangjush Vellahu’s earlier work and journey, as he departs and returns through so-called “geographical peripheries” and “marginal borders”.
Germany
Learn more
Franziska Von Stenglin, Germany
Breaking Boundaries: Xhanfise Keko's Legacy as a Female Director in Soviet-Era Albania
Biography
Franziska von Stenglin was born in 1984, in Munich. She lives and works in Berlin. Artist and filmmaker, she grew up in the Czech Republic, Senegal, India and Germany. In her work she links aspects of her own biography with local myths, people and their stories who she encounters on her travels and artist residencies. Her first feature-length film "The Dust Of Modern Life" had its world premiere at FID (France, 2021) and was screened at DOK (Germany), at CPH Dox (Denmark), and the ICA (United Kingdom), amongst others. The piece “Baħar Biss” was commissioned by the Malta Biennale (Malta, 2024).
Residency project
Franziska von Stenglin’s residency project will focus on the groundbreaking work of Xhanfise Keko, a notable female director who created influential children's films during Albania's Soviet era. Despite facing heavy censorship and gender biases, Keko embedded subversive messages in her work, making her a significant figure in Albanian cinema. Franziska von Stenglin’s previous projects have explored cultural memory and the interplay between tradition and modernity, resonating with Keko's nuanced storytelling under a restrictive regime. Her aim is to illuminate the power of cinema in challenging societal values and exploring gender dynamics.
Italy
Learn more
Kairo Urovi, Italy
Stray dog
Biography
Kairo Urovi was born in 2000, in Fano, Italia. He/They live and work in London. Kairo Urovi’s photographic artwork deals with trans masculinity and queer identity. Their work has been presented in institutions such as Paris Photo art fair (France, 2023), Tirana Art Lab (Albania, 2023) and Burgh House London (United Kingdom, 2021).
Residency project
“Stray Dog” is an ongoing project that finds the artist journeying back to their home country Albania. 11 years after his last visit and 3 years after a gender transition, “Stray Dog” explores a now unfamiliar land where complex emotions of displacement and isolation are amplified. Moving away from traditional documentary work, “Stray Dog” uses humour and playfulness to narrate the artist’s experience of being transgender within Albanian society.
Using his own body, Kairo Urovi disrupts the frame: there are frictions between wanting to be seen and hiding, between empty spaces and ones he inhabits and claims as his own. Whether in the landscapes or self-portraiture, there is an element of wanting to disturb the environment by placing himself within it.
Third session - September to November
%2B(1).webp)
Canada, Iran
Learn more%252B(1).webp)
Pejvak - Felix Kalmenson & Rouzbeh Akhbari, Canada & Iran
The Wire Strangles
Biography
Pejvak is a collective between Felix Kalmenson and Rouzbeh Akhbari, formed in 2014. Felix Kalmenson was born in 1987 in Saint Petersburg. He lives and works in Tbilisi, Georgia. Rouzbeh Akhbari was born in Teheran in 1992. He lives and works in Lisbon. Thanks to their multivalent, intuitive approach to research and life, they find themselves entangled with collaborators, histories and geographies all their own.
Their works has been exhibited in institutions including MAC VAL (France, 2023), Van Abbemuseum (Netherlands, 2022), M HKA (Belgium, 2021) and Si Shang Art Museum (China, 2023). They won the Prix George at Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur (Switzerland, 2020).
Residency project
“The Wire Strangles” is an expansive research-based project which spans the botanic, oceanographic and terrestrial distance between Malaysia, Oman and Albania through the planetary-scale infrastructures of submarine telecommunications cables. During the residency a new major artist moving image work will be developed, in collaboration with local and international researchers, artists, authors and musicians. The work will develop from almost a decade of research conducted by Pejvak, building on an archive of footage shot since 2017 in Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, UK and Oman, coupled with new footage and works to be developed in Tirana and Albania more broadly.
Bosnia-Herzegovina
Learn more
Damir Avdagic, Bosnia-Herzegovina
Prevodenje (Përkthimi, Translation)
Biography
Damir Avdagic was born in 1987, in Banja Luka, Bosnia & Hercegovina. He lives and works between Oslo and Athens. Damir Avdagic’s practice explores themes of historical memory and identity through text, performance and video. As the conflict in Ex-Yugoslavia (1991-1995) is central in his family history, he uses this event as an entry point to think through shifting political systems, migration and the relationship between generations.
Avdagic’s work has been presented in numerous institutions including The Young Artists’ Society (Norway, 2024), Inside Out Art Museum (China, 2024), CAC Gallery (USA, 2024), Whitechapel Gallery (United Kingdom, 2023) and KRAK Center for Contemporary Culture (Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2021).
Residency project
In Damir Avdagic´s work, transgenerational transmission is captured through live translation performed between members of different generations belongiong to the Yugoslav diaspora. Through the slips, stutters and gestures that arise from the task of translating, something appears that lies beyond the spoken message - a surplus that exceeds the translation and the translator in a painful and poetic way. During his residency, Avdagic will develop a performance with a mother and her now grown child from an Ex-Yugoslav family that resettled in Tirana during the 90s, in which the child will listen to and simultaneously translate the mother´s testimony from BCS (Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian) to Albanian. Avdagic will thereby continue his interrogation into the conditions for representing and mediating the denied or repressed trauma caused by war and displacement, but will challenge his working method and form by experimenting with the live setting, in contrast to previous edited video work.
Germany
Learn more
Anna Ehrenstein, Germany
To Own a Space
Biography
Anna Ehrenstein was born in 1993, in Schwäbisch Hal, Germany. She lives and works between Berlin and Tirana. She’s an artist working collaboratively across sculptural and virtual installation, moving image and post-photographic media. She was born a migrant denied asylum and grew up between Germany and Albania.
Anna Ehrenstein received the C/O Berlin Talent Award in 2020. Her work has been presented in numerous institutions including "Lagos Biennale," (Nigeria, 2024), Staatsgalerie Saarbrücken (Germany, 2022), and C/O Berlin, (Germany, 2021).
Residency project
“To Own a Space” transforms Enver Hoxha’s villa into a site of reflection and empowerment through collaborative art making and social exchange. Drawing on her own family's history in conversation with the local community, Anna Ehrenstein's work delves deeply into generational trauma, memory, and resilience. Utilizing AI for media analysis and creation, the project explore how trauma is passed down through generations while highlighting resilience, healing, and cultural continuity. In collaboration with Albanian craftsmen and historians, Anna Ehrenstein will engage in social practice workshops with locals of all generations and create a new body of sculptural and video works.
Albania
Learn more.webp)
Olson Lamaj, Albania
HEAVY HERO
Biography
Olson Lamaj was born in 1985, in Tirana. He lives and works in Tirana. Olson Lamaj’s artwork explores social and political themes, focusing on both contemporary Albanian life and universal systems of meaning. His projects highlight the semiotic saturation and mystical qualities of objects and images tied to political ideologies. His artworks serve as a collective mythography of the present, fostering the creation of new myths.
His work has been shown in numerous institutions and galleries, including Zeta Gallery (Albania, 2023), Tallin Art Hall (Estonia, 2022), Bazamant Art Space (Albania, 2019), Die Kunsthalle Exnergasse im WUK (Austria, 2019), Ludwig Museum Budapest (Hungary, 2016).
Residency project
His residency project at Vila 31 will explore the complex legacy of Aleksandër Kondo, an Albanian weightlifter who defied the structures of the communist regime in the 1980s. Through a multidisciplinary approach of photography, video, installation art and historical research, he aims to unravel the intricate dynamics of heroism and rebellion. By examining Kondo's transformation from a celebrated national figure to a symbol of resistance, this project will challenge conventional narratives around hero worship. Through this lens, he seeks to question how society constructs and deconstructs their heroes, offering a critical reflection on the intersections of sports, politics, and identity.
.webp)
United States
Learn more.webp)
Adriana Ramic, United States
Let it see you only in the shape of your shadows / walking bumblebees think faster
Biography
Adriana Ramić was born in 1989, in Chicago. She lives and works in Berlin.
Her work spans installation, video, text, sculpture, drawing, and software, exploring the tenuous pathos and interiorities among earthly and machinic beings. Through enigmatic vignettes of perception, she investigates the sensitivities of existence and comprehension in both personal and abstracted forms.
Adriana Ramić’s work has been presented in numerous institutions including SculptureCenter (USA, 2024), Hessel Museum of Art (USA, 2019), Museum of Contemporary Art (USA, 2018), Kunstinstituut Melly (Netherlands, 2016), Kunsthalle Wien (Austria, 2015).
Residency project
“Let it see you only in the shape of your shadows / walking bumblebees think faster” (working title) anticipates a body of work set in sites across scales of time from Neolithic to present in the Balkans. Research begun in Bosnia-Herzegovina and to be continued in Tirana and its surroundings will be a framework for poetic and idiosyncratic filmic installations exploring the nature of language, categorization, perception, and existence, with animals as potential protagonists. The phrase, Let it see you only in the shape of your shadows, comes from a computational study in robotics, where a machine was trained to see the world only through shadows, and the idea of estimating a quantum state — perceptual parameters to inform the experiential qualities of the work itself.
Austria
Learn more
Stephanie Rizaj, Austria
Split Stories of Endless Thoughts
Biography
Stephanie Rizaj lives and works between Brussels and Vienna. Her artistic practice encompasses site-specific installations, videos, and sculptures. Rizaj’s work explores the brutality of everyday life, power relations, production conditions, class structures and the collective desire to belong. Stephanie Rizaj has exhibited her work int. in various institutions, including Botanique (Belgium, 2023), Loop Barcelona (Spain, 2021), Diagonale (Austria, 2021), Manifesta 13 (France, 2020), Dokufest (Kosovo, 2019).
Residency project
In 1980, a blue train brought an empty coffin to Belgrade. That same year, Zastava began manufacturing the Yugo, a car that would come to symbolize an era of both hope and disillusionment. A year later, in 1981, as tensions continued to rise, students in Kosovo initiated a protest movement that would have lasting consequences. Many years later, Stephanie Rizaj discovered video footage of a former Communist Party member documenting his escape from the dissolution of a socialist state to a capitalist society, which ultimately led him to Las Vegas. This footage reveals a complex double life, capturing the layers of a journey and the transformation of identity in an unfamiliar world.
Find out more about our residences
The 2024 selection committee
Independent curator and essayist
Learn morePierre Bal-Blanc is an art critic and curator. Editor-in-chief of the magazine Bloc Notes (1998-2000), co-founder of the Design Mental agency, he directed the Centre d'art contemporain de Brétigny-sur-Orge (2003-2014).
Pierre Bal-Blanc was associate curator of Documenta 14 in Athens and Kassel. Resonating with the societal thought of Charles Fourier, he is developing the "Phalanstère Project", a series of in situ proposals that critically restructure the logics of labor accumulation.
The most important aspect of his curatorial work is "de-gentrification", inspired by the philosophical work of Pierre Klossowski.
Pierre Bal-Blanc's projects regularly address the paradoxes of perversion and transgression, of the living and the object, through the processes of industrialization and production.
Directors of Hamburger Bahnhof: National Gallery for Contemporary Art, Berlin
Learn moreTill Fellrath and Sam Bardaouil have been curators and co-directors of Hamburger Bahnhof: Berlin's Museum of Contemporary Art since 2008.
Together they founded the multidisciplinary curatorial platform Art Reoriented in Munich and New York.
They were curators of the 2022 Lyon Biennale, and curators of the French Pavilion at the 2022 Venice Biennale, as well as affiliated curators at Berlin's Gropius Bau until 2021.
Their exhibitions have been shown at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Gwangju and Busan art museums in South Korea, Tate Liverpool and the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Sweden.
Curator, author and director of Tirana Art Lab - Contemporary Art Center, Albania
Learn moreAdela Demetja is an Albanian curator born in Tirana.
She is the director of Tirana Art Lab - Center for Contemporary Art, which she founded in 2010.
As a freelance curator, she has organized numerous exhibitions internationally and with institutions such as Tirana's National Art Gallery, Kosovo's National Art Gallery, Berlin's Maxim Gorki Theater and Portland's Institute for Contemporary Research.
She curated the Albanian pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale, represented by Lumturi Blloshmi.
She is the founder and director of programme "Curating with Care", an alternative programme conservation training program based in Tirana.
Curator, lecturer, educator. Director of ΕΜΣΤ | National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens.
Learn moreKaterina Gregos is a curator and writer. Since 2021, she has been director of the National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMΣT), in Athens.
For over 20 years, her curatorial work has explored the relationship between art, society and politics, with a particular focus on issues of democracy, human rights, economics, ecology, crises and changes in global production circuits. As an independent curator, she has organized Riga, Manifesta and Goteborg.
She has also curated three national pavilions at the Venice Biennale: Denmark (2011), Belgium (2015) and Croatia (2019).
This year, she is curator of the Greek pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale. She divides her time between Athens and Brussels.
Curator, Contemporary Creation and Prospective Department, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris
Learn moreAlicia Knock has been a curator for contemporary creation at the Centre Pompidou since 2015.
Her work focuses on modern and contemporary art from Africa and Central Europe, with a particular emphasis on acquisitions and exhibitions.
In 2018, she created the "Cercle international Afrique" of the Friends of the Centre Pompidou.
She seeks to propose innovative, creative and forward-looking exhibition formats that question the museum of tomorrow from a decolonial perspective. Her work is also committed to giving greater visibility to women artists.
She has been appointed curator of the Albanian pavilion at the 2019 Venice Biennale.
She has worked with numerous art institutions, including the Palais de Tokyo in Paris and MoMA PS1 in New York.
Art historian, contemporary art critic, curator and artistic director of the Serpentine Galleries, London
Learn moreHans Ulrich Obrist was born in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1968. Hans Ulrich Obrist is artistic director of the Serpentine Galleries in London.
Previously, he was curator of the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. Since his first exhibition "World Soup, The Kitchen Show" in 1991, he has organized over 300 exhibitions.
Obrist has lectured worldwide at academic and art institutions, and contributed to Artforum, AnOther Magazine, Cahiers d'Art, and 032C; he is a regular contributor to Mousse and Kaleidoscope and writes columns for Das Magazin and Weltkunst.
In 2011, he received the CCS Bard Award for Curatorial Excellence and, in 2015, the International Folkwang Prize for his commitment to the arts.
Hans Ulrich Obrist is a member of the Art Explora selection committee for residencies in Paris.
More projects
.webp)
