Identities

IDENTITIES

Selection of works from the classes of Basics of Art Education, Phenomenology of the Object and Painting.
Curators: Stefano Romano & Remijon Pronja

Artists: Aishe Bitri, Dajana Gega, Edlira Terzia, Eglira Aska, Elinara Shehu, Elisa Zefi, Enada Gjonej, Eni Fetahu, Ester Reçi, Flladia Povata, Gani Kasa, Irsa Degjoni, Jessica Kapllanaj, Klodian Gjonpalaj, Livia Dhamo, Lutfie Kambo, Marina Olimpia Dalipi, Melisa Karmaj, Romilda Marku, Sirjana Rumi

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.
Mahatma Gandhi

Identity represents the set of qualities relating to an individual or a group that makes them different from others.

Each of us is in constant search of his own identity, in each of the different phases of life there are different phases of the construction of our identity, both personal and collective. Who we are? What do we belong to? These are some of the key questions in the history of humanity which, according to historical moments and geographical locations, receive different answers, each of which contributes to forming our identities.
The 20 projects selected by as many students of the first, second and third year of the Bachelor program in Art and Design, in the courses of Basics of Art Education, Phenomenology of the Object and Painting, have as common denominator the search for identity.
Each of them addresses this theme explicitly, or subtly, through works that reflect on private, social, or political themes.
There are works that speak of family (Jessica Kapllanaj), others that highlight the situation of education in Albania (Lutfie Kambo). Other works speak about the vision of oneself (Elinara Shehu) or about the changes that the pandemic we are experiencing has forced us to make in our approach to daily life (Klodian Gjonpalaj, Eglira Aska). There are works that question the relationship between mother and child (Romilda Marku), or our archaic sense of protection when in the fetal position (Enada Gjonej). Works that show the evocative power of images in overcoming mourning (Aishe Bitri) or our desire for mimesis with the surrounding environment in order to reaffirm ourselves (Ester Reçi). Works that face us with the passing of time (Dajana Gega) and in all of these approaches, we are always at the center, like the disappearance of faces in the works of Marina Olimpia Dalipi and Eni Fetahu, a dismemberment that seems like the loss of identity, a loss of the urban consciousness as is evident in the work of Gani Kasa, a tree stripped of the green and located in the middle of urban nothingness . We are always looking for new points of view through which to look at the world as a mirror in order to better understand ourselves and who we are.