Qëndresa Deda, Nadežda Kirćanski and Lek M. Gjeloshi, moderated by Adrian Deva at Summer School as School 2019
17 August, 2019, 19:00
Venue: Boxing Club
Summer School as School
5 - 21 August, 2019
Stacion - Center Contemporary Art Prishtina has the pleasure to announce presentation by YVAA winners Qëndresa Deda, Nadežda Kirćanski and Lek M. Gjeloshi, moderated by Adrian Deva, part of the Public Program of Summer School as School 2019.
“Artists of Tomorrow Award”, organized in Kosovo by Stacion – Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina, “Ardhje Award” organized in Albania by ZETA Contemporary Art Center and Remont Galerija, Nagrada “Dimitrije Bašičević Mangelos” are 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 intention of President Havel, Wendy W. Luers, the US organizers and funders was to award young artists up to 35, with a US residency - that is to expose them to the outside world - and to underscore the role of culture in democratization and civil society.
Qëndresë Deda (1988) is an artist who works across different media usually putting herself in a role of an object and subject. When using photography she treats camera as a mirror. Although her works appear to be very personal and intimate she deals with the phenomena of her immediate surroundings. The photographs from the D series, made during the period of five years, documents and depicts wishes, dreams, fears and nothingness. She mostly used Facebook space to present them.
List of few solo and group exhibitions include:
Artists of Tomorrow Award 2016 (finalist) – Stacion CCA Prishtina, 2016, Biennial of graphic arts Ljubljana ( 28 August - 3 December 2015), Do you want something sweet? - Obalne galerije Piran (group exhibition) May 2015, Hajde! (Part II) Exchange program for young artists from Kosovo at Villa Romana – March 2015, Artists of Tomorrow Award 2014 (finalist) - GAK – 2014, Here And There, solo, March 27. 2014 - April 25. 2014 - Cultural Center Tobacna 001 - curator: Alenka Trebušak, Selection of artists from Kosova, It Doesn't always have to be beautiful unless it's beautiful, Muslim Mulliqi Prize , Gallery of Arts of Kosova,30.05.2012 – 30.07.2012 , curated by Galit Eilat & Charles Esche, May 2012, Prishtina, AFTERMATH - CHANGING CULTURAL LANDSCAPE - Tendencies of engaged Post-Yugoslavian Contemporary Photography, Alone together: photography and the other, Gjon Mili Prize, Gallery of Arts of Kosova, 13.09.2013 – 13.10.2013, curated by Frits Gierstberg, Prishtina,The XV Biennale de la Mediterranée – Symbiosis – Thessaloniki 2011, D with Qendresa Deda - Curatorial by Albert Heta - 16/12/2010 - 29/1/2011, Tetris - Space for Manipulation, Prishtina, Right Turn - Turn Right, curated by Lulezim Zeqiri, Traffic Gallery, Perspektiva 2010, curated by Erzen Shkololli.
The work of Qëndresë Deda, produced for the Artist of Tomorrow Award 2018 revolves around the issues of identity, “utopic space” of freedom, rejection of all labels that you can reject, heaviness of what you are carrying, importance of creating a space, when you do not have the space you use your body-self as a space. From symbolic parts of the images Qëdresë Deda related the image of “the stone”, which was a metaphor for Sisyphus myth and heaviness with the text that was part of the exhibition two years ago which she found important for the position that she is situated in now (and all of us). The otherness seen in us, occupation, displacement and also universal the wish and need for freedom.
Nadežda Kirćanski (1992, Zrenjanin, RS) visual artist. She graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade, Department of Sculpture. Currently a PhD candidate at the same faculty. Her artistic practice employs a range of media, including drawing, objects, and site-sensitive installations. Nadežda examines the collision of socio-political realities and contemporary language of youth, unfolding its unacknowledged emotional, physical, and intellectual labor. In 2018 she was awarded with ‘Dimitrije Bašičević Mangelos’ Award and was honored by the Award for drawing of the Vladimir Veličković Fondation. She was also awarded with ‘Sreten Stojanović, professor of AFA’ Award for achievements in Sculpture for the year of 2017.
Lek M. Gjeloshi (1987, Shkodër, Albania) studied Visual Arts at Fine Arts Academy of Florence (2010). His artistic practice mainly focuses on the elaboration of a particular intensity emanated by the absence of a predetermined object of investigation. Passing through the video to site-specific and other conceptual actions, the direct application – the visual or the visible ones – of his work is realized in the intimate relation established with the modeled and found space.
His solo exhibitions include: “Everlast” curated by Vala Osmani at Stacion – Center for Contemporary Art (Prishtina, 2019); “Sleepwalkers” at Zeta Gallery (Tirana, 2018); “All my colours turn to clouds” at Villa Romana (Florence, 2016) and “Off-cells” at Civic Gallery of Shkodër (2016). In 2016 he was the winner of “Ardhje Award” for Young Visual Artists, organized by TICA – Tirana Institute of Contemporary Art in Albania. In 2015 he was the winner of the “Idromeno Prize” for Young Albanian Artists. He has participated in many group exhibitions from 2007, including: “Albania is not Cuba”, curated by Amy Zion at !!!Sección A R T E_!!! Update [No.22], El Paquete Seminale, (Cuba, 2019); “Ex Gratia” curated by Adrian Paci and Rischa Paterlini at Collezione Iannaccone (Milan, 2018); “A time for dreams” curated by David Elliott at Moscow Museum of Modern Art (Moscow, 2014); “Fuori Posto”, “Nuovo Cinema Masaccio” and “Lontano da dove?” curated by Pier Luigi Tazzi between Casa Masaccio and Lanfranco Baldi Foundation (Florence, 2014, 2013, 2012). In 2018 he was artist-in-residence at Residency Unlimited in New York.
Adrian Deva is a painter and an art educator. He completed his undergraduate education at University of Prishtina studying architecture (1992-1994) and painting (BFA 1998), and graduate school at Eastern Michigan University (MFA 2004), also with concentration in painting. He has been teaching university-level studio courses in art from 2003, and from 2008 he serves as lecturer at the Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design, University of Michigan.
His creative work synthesizes influences from broad number of sources such as: migration and acculturation, shifts in cultural trends and their reflection on aesthetics, art and ideology, contemporary kitsch and ‘approachable aesthetics’.