Stacion – Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina
Artists of Tomorrow Award 2019
Artist Talk * Somer Spat, Edona Kryeziu, Dion Zeqiri * finalists of the Artists of Tomorrow Award 2019
4 December 2019, from 19:00 - 20:00
Address: Boxing Club, Mark Isaku 8, 10000 Prishtina, Republic of Kosovo
Stacion – Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina has the pleasure to announce the Artist Talk with Somer Spat, Edona Kryeziu, Dion Zeqiri, finalists of the Artists of Tomorrow Award 2019.
The Artist Talks part of the Artists of Tomorrow Award 2019 aim to create space for discussion with the audience around art works, the artistic practice, correlating the artistic practice with other social, political and economic dimensions.
Somer Şpat on his work “We Build Railways, Railways Build Us” which deals with the railway system, once a symbol of modernism and collective enthusiasm, has written: “Prizren railway system hasn’t been functioning since the war in Kosovo. The construction of the railway system mobilized and subjectivized the newly formed working class right after the revolution. People from below were represented as subjects of the new history, and could show their own image on the front pages of the newspapers. Nowadays, the ruined railway system carries these wrecked and forgotten fragments of collective images.”
Şpat’s works focus on political issues, both in local and in international context. Retroactively, his artworks try to deal with the various forms and representations of state violence. This violence can be the imposition of images by state; or the destruction of public infrastructure by private property.
He considers archival research as a very important part of his production. After spending time in archives to find materials for his ongoing “railway” project, Somer Şpat discovered the portraits of the voluntary workers who built the railway lines, and this discovery changed the direction of his work and gave it a different rhythm.
Somer Şpat (1996, Prizren) has completed his bachelor degree in Photography at the Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University. His interest in art started from a passion towards cinema which led him to study Photography. Through studying photography he developed interest to contemporary art and found more experimental ways of thinking and discussing it.
Somer doesn’t consider himself as dependent to a specific medium. The medium comes through the process of his artistic research. In other words, through the process, the medium emerges and imposes itself to him. Perceiving himself as a producer rather than a creator he so tries to further complicate the authorship issues in his works.
About her work “Strange temporalities” showcased in the exhibition of the finalists of the Artists of Tomorrow Award 2019, Edona Kryeziu has written: “People find belonging in communities. As we imagine our communities, we associate meaning with them, and we become part of that community. But who draws the boundaries of our communities? Who decides who belongs and who cannot? Who has the freedom to choose and who has not? ‘Strange temporalities’ delves into the ‘unspeakable’, - the diasporic condition. It presents two personal stories from the Kosovar diaspora in Germany, who wish to remain anonymous. While their stories speak from a certain place, they could be told in a similar, (-or completely different) way by others who share the diasporic experience. What is certain is that “migrants” are often put into a strange place, being from somewhere else; - but also in a strange temporality, having just arrived or still being elsewhere. If not physically at least culturally. After all, this installation offers a glimpse to trace how one tries to bridge the disconnect between communities.”
The installation encompasses the story of two Kosovar diasporic subjects exposing their ambivalence. Often they do not arrive, because every arrival scares them, scares others. What it means to be born in the ‘wrong’ place is explored in this installation.
The purpose of her work is to expose feelings of displacement, inner ambivalence, self-denial and strategies of survival that come along when being a diasporic subject. Therefore, she uses her feelings and personal background as a resource to illuminate on the nature of a fragmented identity. Each piece of art contributes to creating a third space as a point of enunciation for her, minorities in Germany, and all diasporas to which her work may speak to. This is an intervention and creation of something new, rooted in grief, confusion, anger and – hope. The very process of making art for her is the journey towards dissolving the “Otherness” in her “Self”.
Edona Kryeziu (1994) was born in a small German town close to the French border. She spent most of her childhood and adolescence in Cologne, Germany. There, she was raised among other people whose parents were not from Germany.
Visiting a high-school which was predominantly German and Christian, made her think about the migrant condition, the famous 'culture clash' narrative, urban segregation, privilege and inequality. At the age of 18, she spent a year in the suburbs of Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she worked with local community centres to support the marginalised. It was there where she learned to question the status quo, which made her study first Social Science in Maastricht and Istanbul University, then Anthropology of Migration and Diaspora at SOAS University of London.
Besides academia, Edona has a theatre background, in acting and screenplay writing, and likes to experiment with different mediums such as film montage, photography, installations to question normalcy.
Dion Zeqiri for the exhibition of the finalists of the Artists of Tomorrow Award 2019 produced two art works part of the larger body of works. (NO CONTENT) and “Impossible Desire”. Dion Zeqiri deals with the notion of emergency between transitions. Zeqiri in regard to his exhibited work has written: “It destructuralizes the human body as I’ve seen it in, a functionless state, only as an object or image. A phenomenon that I’ve only gotten the chance to look at and hear, I could never bring myself to succumb to the situation. To me, that’s always been a moment of functionless. All too similar to zero. In the midst of all of this, the work I have done/created, pathed me in front of a finished act, against which I could never will upon or wish upon”.
Frames for (NO CONTENT) are taken after scanning the brain of Zeqiri’s father, where they understood that his brain had a paralysis. In such a condition, the informing object seemed like an object of morality which could define so many things.
Brain as the main source of ideas, couldn’t communicate what was happening inside the human body, here it was the need of an another object which was going to translate between images what we have inside of us, to define it as responsible. Video comes off as a loop and continues with real time speed for several seconds. When the second part of the video comes up, reaching the lower part of the ears, the exact place where the paralyze has happened, a white light appears with an interruption of two seconds. It creates extreme brightness that has the ability to create momental Obvilion, as an interaction part with the public.
“Impossible Desire” appears as a cause of the paralysis of the brain of Zeqir’s father. As Zeqiri could understand from the images of a scan, his father’s hand had lost its function. By 3D scanning this body part in a real and new condition, he produced a 3D print of the hand that had lost it’s primary function. Even if I replicated or I make it the very same, again it wouldn’t have the function as a body part, said Zeqiri.
The whole work treats a transition between information taken from images and how they affect us, and the objects that inform us, and give us responsibility in relation to images that we communicate with. The hand in “Impossible Desire” stays as a functionless reality extracted directly from the images of the brain, thus becomes an object that arises as a consequence of it. Responsibility.
Dion Zeqiri (1996) completed his bachelor studies in interior design at the University of Prishtina (2018). He has been working in a design company as a compiler of creative projects. Through various styles, he began to practice painting since primary school.
Zeqiri works with various mediums such as: installations, sculptures, video and readymade objects continuously requiring to question those found objects for translating them in a communication, that puts his language in the social scale. Dion Zeqiri’s first show was “Rumination” (2018), “Hapësira Motrat”, Prishtina, Kosovo.
Dion Zeqiri’s art practice lies as a departing point of his personal experience. He worked on empowering subjects that include actual emotional or physical conditions, by opening new interpretations around occurrence’s and circumstances.
The Artists of Tomorrow Award 2019 with Somer Şpat, Edona Kryeziu, Dion Zeqiri was curated by Vala Osmani and Albert Heta, exhibition architecture by Vala Osmani.
The exhibition of the Artists of Tomorrow Award 2019 at Boxing Club will remain open until December 6th 2019.
The winner of the Artists of Tomorrow Award 2019 will be announced on December 6th 2019, at the Boxing Club in Prishtina, in the closing of the exhibition of Artists of Tomorrow Award 2019.
The Artists of Tomorrow Award is part of the Young Visual Artists Awards program - a network of ten similar awards organized throughout Central and Eastern Europe with the intention of supporting the emergence and development of contemporary art and civil society.
The Jury of the Artists of Tomorrow Award 2019, comprised of Charles Esche, the director of the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Qëndresë Deda, artist, winner of Artists of Tomorrow Award 2018, Adam Kleinman, an independent curator and writer as well as the Regional Curator for North America at the Kadist Art Foundation, Sezgin Boynik, theoretician and editor based in Helsinki, Jelena Vesić curator, writer, editor and independent.
The Artists of Tomorrow Award is a unique project which provides young visual artists under the age of 35 the opportunity to produce new art work, be part of a tailored education process, have meetings and presentations for an international jury of highly acclaimed professionals, have a joint exhibition with the finalists, curated by the curatorial team of Stacion – Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina, and become part of an artist in residency program in United States to experience New York’s dynamic art scene for a two month residency at Residency Unlimited.
The winners of the Artists of Tomorrow Award, upon their return form US, have a solo exhibition at Stacion – Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina, as part of the exhibitions program of the institution and the Artists of Tomorrow Award program.
The Artists of Tomorrow Award is part of the Young Visual Artists Awards program - a network of ten similar awards organized throughout Central and Eastern Europe founded in 1989 in Czechoslovakia by President Vaclav Havel and dissident artists with the intention of supporting the emergence and development of contemporary art and civil society.
The founding mission and programmatic framework - to promote contemporary art, recognize and award artistic excellence, foster cultural exchange, and build capacity of local art NGO’s and civil society – is also a guide for Stacion – Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina to implement The Artists of Tomorrow Award in Kosovo.
Stacion – Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina aims to enhance the potential and influence of The Artists of Tomorrow Award in the general developments in contemporary art in the whole territory of Kosovo.
Stacion – Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina thanks all Kosovo artists who applied for the Artists of Tomorrow Award 2019 for their continuous work and collaboration.
Stacion – Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina thanks jury for their work and collaboration.
Stacion – Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina thanks sponsors and supporters of the Artists of Tomorrow Award.
The Artists of Tomorrow Award 2019 organized by Stacion – Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina is supported by the U.S. Embassy in Kosovo, Trust for Mutual Understanding (TMU), Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports of the Republic of Kosovo, Municipality of Prishtina, x-print and DZG.