I have also other favorites
Jen Davis, Qendrese Deda, Majlinda Hoxha, Joanna Jennings, Genc Kadriu, Blerta Kambo, Wei Leng Tay, Ferdinand Von Bozen, Mimi Youn, Shen Wei, Lin Zhipeng
Curatorial by Albert Heta in collaboration with Qendrese Deda
Opening: 28 December 2011, 19:00
28 December 2011 - 4 February 2012
'I have also other favorites' with Jen Davis, Qendrese Deda, Majlinda Hoxha, Joanna Jennings, Genc Kadriu, Blerta Kambo, Wei Leng Tay, Ferdinand Von Bozen, Mimi Youn, Shen Wei and Lin Zhipeng is the final phase of a process based project with a working title MINE, initiated as a curatorial project conceived to function as a single task for one selected artist that works in contemporary photography - the artist would select and communicate with other artists in the exhibition.
There were no limits, geographical or any other kind. The project was designed to create a wish list, with the institution functioning as the expediter of this (dream) selection.
As such the project would produce a platform designed to explore wider interests of the selected artist, functionalize the project as a process of communication between artists, but also test and show our time without virtual limits but with many real limitations, power of artists and independent institutions functioning in a newly designed country and the potential and ambitions of these in relation to today's contemporary art world.
'I have also other favorites' and the long ride behind it, once again made us create a functional model that came out of the inability to realize the project as planed.
This process, also made us experience in part the idea of having one institution or one curator working for a whole year with a single artist.
Qendrese Deda was selected to be the artist for this collaboration and in way this project marks a year of close collaboration between Stacion - Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina and Qendrese Deda.
But beyond the beauty of an idea, the question is if our work with this artist now, and others in the recent past, is a result of seeing only few artists working in this scene and producing relevant work, and is this fact also the real ground out of which the idea is coming? And would any similar action or strategy in any way function as a substitute to the lack of any working grant schemes that would support artistic research, national or international, existing in this project of a country, that are designed to support individual artistic work through models that go beyond narrow minded interest groups or the dominating populist narratives in arts?
And would we as an independent institution find partnership for any of these ideas or similar, focused on an artist selected because of her work, again, among national or international existing institutions or foundations in this project of a country?
What if you apply, again, for partnership with national or international donors existing in this project of a country that would empower one artist to engage in a process resulting in an exhibition with invited artists related to her interest and her work, designed to question and show our time without virtual limits and physical limitations, power of artists and institutions existing in new countries, isolated countries, small societies, isolated societies and big ambitions?
Qendrese Deda in this process selected an impressive and challenging body of works. Besides works by Jen Davis, Majlinda Hoxha, Joanna Jennings, Genc Kadriu, Blerta Kambo, Wei Leng Tay, Ferdinand Von Bozen, Mimi Youn, Shen Wei and Lin Zhipeng, works by Franceska Woodman, Lauren Greenfiled, Nan Goldin, Cindy Sherman, Miranda July, Antoine D'Agata and Anders Petersen were part of the selection and remained out of the final phase of the project, primarily due to the lack of substantial support for the project.
We are all grateful to the artists and their representatives for their readiness to be part of the project and we sincerely hope that this project will only be the start of our mutual collaboration.
Qendrese Deda about her selection has initially written the following: 'These photos are some of the photos that have stayed more than others on the screen of my pc, then after that - on my mind? Some of them, I would like to be mine, or I think that they have something similar with mines, or just I love the moment that they express, or that that came on my mind after seeing them? I have also other favorites, but these ones, guess that can stay together on the same place? To face Life - to live? I have also other images on my mind. I am afraid from my choices!'
'I have also other favorites' was supported by The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Youth of the Republic of Kosova, Directorate for Culture, Youth and Sorts of the Municipality of Prishtina, Art Foto, X-Print and DZG.
p.s. 'I have also other favorites' is the last exhibition pat of the program for 2011 and the first in the program of 2012. The timing for the opening of the exhibition corresponds with the opening of the first exhibition at Stacion - Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina. 'Fainting' with Bujar Sylejmani and Jakup Ferrin, opened on 29/12/2006 and it also utilized the working space of Stacion - Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina.