• Identity Restoration Reloaded
Conference “Identity Restoration Reloaded” - Identity Restoration Reloaded

Identity Restoration Reloaded, as a project, is based on the re-enactment of the conference ‘Event0: Identity Restoration’ (27 June 2007), organised by Stacion – Center for Contemporary Art Prishtina in time of great expectations but also great fears on what would the forthcoming independence of Kosova bring to the Kosovo Serbs and the region. In 2007, in the last days before the conference Oliver Ivanovic had cancelled his participation in the conference.

‘Identity Restoration Reloaded’ as a re-enactment, appears in a context and a country with no such practice in the art scene, a country with diminishing archival culture and disappearing public institutions that can function as a memory of a society - 'history making' as a tool for erasure and engineering the past for the present power players is a dominant practice in this country.

The timeline of the implementation of ‘Identity Restoration Reloaded’ project and its structure are central to the project. The most visible part of the project will be implemented during November 2012, the time when in Albania and Kosova state structures will celebrate the 100 anniversary of the Independence of Albania.

Overall, ‘Identity Restoration Reloaded’ was implemented with events in the public space in Prishtina - the billboard project “NSK State in Time” by the Ljubljana based group IRWIN, the artistic wing of the ‘Neue Slovenische Kunst – NSK’ (1 Nov. – 1 Dec 2012), the exhibition ‘My Name Their Town’ with the artist Alban Muja (14 Nov.  – 7 Dec. 2012), the performance of NSK’s music wing Laibach (16 Nov. 2012) and culminated with the conference “Identity Restoration Reloaded” (15 Nov. 2012) that included invited panelists of the first conference (Isuf Berisha, Baton Haxhiu, Aasmund Andersen, Valon Murati, Migjen Kelmendi, Albert Heta and Petrit Selimi), the TV debate at ‘Opinion’, the flagship TV debate program at Klan TV Albania (20 Nov. 2012) with participants of the first conference and invited panelist from Albania, and continue with the publication of the project. The publication will also include the transcripts of the discussions, papers and other documentation of the re-enacted conference.