Featured Project | Albanian Lapidar Survey

Help the Department of Eagles realize their latest project, the Albanian Lapidar Survey on Indiegogo. 

They can be found in every Albanian town and city, but no one knows how many there are: the lapidars. Their amazing form, architecture, and sculpture is unique to Albania, and the Albanian Lapidar Survey is the very first attempt to photograph, document and geotag every single one of them to preserve this important cultural heritage for future generations. The final publication will also include contributions from renowned theorists in the field of socialist realism and monumentality.

Introducing the Albanian Lapidar Survey for Indiegogo from Department of Eagles on Vimeo.

***************************************************

Featured Event & Publication | BALKART

BALKART //// Launch Party

October 9, 2013 @19:00hrs

@Tetris 

[Mark Isaku Street #24, Kosovo]

RSVP

WHAT IS BALKART????

History, trauma, sex, politics, struggle, the “Yugo-” and the “neo-”: talking about art in the little Balkan peninsula. Pick up Kosovo 2.0’s sixth magazine issue, Balkart, for the art, life, and philosophy of the region’s up and coming artists, designers, curators, and collectives.
Created in cooperation with the Culturescapes Festival, this edition documents the thriving, struggling, and impressive art scene brewing across the Balkans.
Join K2.0 at Tetris for the launch, and enjoy the mix mash music by Alush Gashi & Jeton Rushiti and a special Balkan treat: as much turshi and raki as your heart desires. 

*****

Histori, traumë, seks, politikë, përpjekje të mëdha, “Yugo-” epoka dhe “neo-” epoka: fjala është për artin në këtëfarë gadishull të Ballkanit. Merrni numrin e gjashtë me radhë të revistës së Kosovo 2.0, Balkart, mbi artin, jetën, dhe filozofinë e artistëve premtues, dizajnerëve, kuratorëve dhe kolektiveve artistike në rajon.
I prodhuar në bashkëpunim me Culturescapes Festival, ky edicion dokumenton skenën mbresëlënëse, të mundimshme, dhe lulëzuese të artit që po vlon nëpër krejt Ballkanin.
Ejani në Tetris për inaugurimin e numrit të fundit, nën muzikë të mirë nga Alush Gashi dhe Jeton Rushiti, si dhe një qarosje speciale Ballkanase nga K2.0: turshi e raki sa t’ju dojë zemra. 

**********************************************************

Featured Project | Performing the East

Dr. Amy Bryzgel is a lecturer in History of Art at the University of Aberdeen, where she teach courses on modern and contemporary art, with a focus on art from Central and Eastern Europe, especially performance art.

She is traveling through Eastern Europe (Baltics & Balkans) to research Performance Art for her book (Performance Art in Eastern Europe). Her first stop was Albania, where she met and interviewed artists, curators, art historians, and critics in order to have a more comprehensive understanding of local arts & culture. 

‘‘ The research itself is in many ways performative. As I attempt to tell the tale of performance art in Eastern Europe, I must retrace its steps, step into the paths of the artists, and endeavor, in my own way, to perform the East.’’ -A.B

Check out the project and follow her travels at: Performing the East.

 

Also, read her posts on Albania, its artists and the emerging local creative scene on her blog.

****************************************************************

Featured Book | Handmade Urbanism: From Community Initiatives to Participatory Models

BOOK REVIEW 

"Handmade Urbanism. From Community Initiatives to Participatory Models" [book]

Marcos L. Rosa & Ute E. Weiland

book

‘‘ Urbanizmi Handmade siguron një ndryshim urban të kryer nga vetë rezidentët e lagjes apo komunitetit, me duart dhe mjetet e tyre. Kjo gjë fillon me banorët, që pasi i pranojnë problemet e përbashkëta, bëhen aktiv në realizimin e ideve për ti zgjidhur ato. Iniciativat e komunitetit evoluojnë nga këto gjeste aktive dhe mbështesin pjesëmarrjen aktive të qytetarëve në nivelin lokal. Veprimet e tyre shohin shanse në sfida, janë kreativ në përdorimin e burimeve ekzistuese, si dhe krijojnë partneritete e marrëdhënie për të arritur qëllime të paracaktuara që adresojnë nevojat e tyre të përditshme dhe për më tepër sigurojnë një cilësi të përmirësuar jetese për komunitetet.’’

page 1

Disa nga pyetjet që mbulon libri janë:

Në përgjigje të kujt fillojnë projektet? 

Cfarë partneritesh krijohen? 

Cilat janë sfidat kryesore në zbatimin e një projekti bashkëpunues? 

A ekziston dëshira për të përmirësuar mjedisin urban? 

Si marrin formë këto përmirësime?

Preview Librin / Mund ta gjeni në Facebook

page 23 

‘‘ Handmade Urbanism is the way of providing urban change carried out by local residents in their own neighborhoods or communities, with their own hands and means. It starts with the residents recognizing a problem, followed by the active realization of an idea to solve that immediate issue. Community initiatives evolve from those active gestures and support the citizen’s active participation at the local scale. Their acts recognize chances in challenges, make creative use of existing resources, and forge partnerships and relationships to achieve predefined goals that address their daily needs and, eventually, ensure an improved quality of life for communities. ’’

page 39

Some of the questions that are covered in the book:

In response to what do projects start? 

Which partnerships are created? 

What are the main challenges in implementing a collaborative project? 

Is there a desire to improve the urban environment? 

How do these improvements take shape?

Preview Book / Find on Facebook

via pps

**********************************************************************

Albania's Bunker Mentality on PRI's The World

Continuing the subject of Albanian Bunkers as residue of the communist mentality and military paranoia that still linger not so latent(ly). 
In a way they are hidden in plain sight.

For more info go here, here, here, here.

Photo credit: David Galjaard

Here's PRI's The World:

" You know the environmental mantra — reduce, reuse, recycle? Well, this story is kind of about all three.

More than half a million concrete bunkers dot the Albanian landscape. They’re holdovers from the time of Cold War leader Enver Hoxha.

Since the end of Communism, many of the bunkers have been re-purposed. But there are so many, Albanians don’t know what to do with them all.

If you’re looking for a poster boy that embodies “Communist strongman with an iron fist,” Enver Hoxha‘s definitely your guy.

Let’s tick the boxes.

Massive state security apparatus? Check.

Cult of personality? Check.

Rampant paranoia and xenophobia? Check and double check."

(the full transcript at PRI The World) 

*******************************************************************************

Featured Book | Going Public

Going Public 

Public Architecture, Urbanism and Interventions

Libri Going Public paraqet një përzgjedhje rigjallërimi krijues të hapësirava publike në mjediset urbane dhe natyrore. Projektet shtrihen nga ato më zyrtare, ambicioze dhe të përhershme deri tek ndërhyrjet, instalimet dhe riciklimet më të thjeshta, delikate dhe të përkohshme, duke përfshirë skena kulturore, pavijone, parqe, sheshe, kulla dhe platforma vëzhguese, si dhe lloje të ndryshme hapësirash publike që nxisin jo vetëm transformimin urban por dhe mënyra të reja te përdorimit të tij.

" Arkitektura e dekadave të fundit është formuar nga nevoja për përfaqësim dhe piketim individual. Sot, një kundër-lëvizje në rritje po përqëndrohet në zhvillimin e hapësirës publike si një mjet për të mbledhur njerëzit së bashku që të shkëmbejnë ide ose të ndajnë përvojat." 

via Going Public

via Going Public

via Going Public

Going Public presents a selection of creative revival of public space in our urban and natural surroundings. The projects range from formal, bold and permanent to informal, subtle and temporary interventions, installations, reclamations that include cultural venues, pavilions, parks and squares, observation towers and platforms and diverse types of public space that encourage transformation and new uses of urban life.

" The architecture of the last several decades was shaped by the need for individual representation and demarcation. Today, a growing counter-movement is focusing on the development of public space as a means to get people together in order to exchange ideas or share experiences." 

via Going Public

via Going Public

via Going Public

Editors: R. Klanten, S. Ehmann, S. Borges, L. Feireiss
Release Date: August 2012
Credits: Format: 24 x 30 cm
Features: 272 pages, full color, hardcover
Language: English
ISBN: 978-3-89955-440-3

via popupcity

*****************************************************************

Featured Book | Tirana. Suspended Contemporaneity

Tirana. Contemporaneità sospesa /
Suspended Contemporaneity
by Andrea Bulleri 
Quodlibet, Macerata, 2012. (pp.280, €30,00)



Andrea Bulleri's new book explores the Albanian capital by portraying its complexities, failures, wilderness, vitality and colors. A city that thrives in dynamic instability. But with all this comes a vulnerable urgency of untapped potential and renewal that makes Tirana's overall composition ready to shift towards maturity.

Andrea Bulleri, Tirana, contemporaneità sospesa. Suspended Contemporaneity,
Quodlibet, 2012. Page details via domus

Here's an excerpt from the Domus review of the book:

" When describing Tirana, Andrea Bulleri moves out of that comfort zone in which many scholars often find themselves today. He describes exotic and remote urban contexts, satisfied in highlighting their most picturesque and unusual features. Bulleri tries to look at the Albanian capital with the same "violence" with which the city comes into the viewer's gaze. In an attempt to face a subject that is overly complex and simultaneously thorny and fragile, the text constantly evokes different readings and interpretations, bringing together explorations in urban history, descriptions of contemporary projects and architectural criticism. The author's perspective delivers a portrayal resembling an anatomical study, in which the biological dimension prevails, with the use of such terms as vitalism, congestion, failure, and trauma. Or he describes the city's temporal dimension using words like transition,suspension, metamorphosis, transience, and excess of history." 

Andrea Bulleri, Tirana, contemporaneità sospesa. Suspended Contemporaneity,
Quodlibet, 2012. Page details via domus

Here's another review by Quodlibet :

" Tirana is a city that has been changed and transformed both architecturally and in its urban form. So that Stefano Boeri recently wrote that the contemporary vibrating, wild individualist Tirana is literally inside the old communist Tirana composed by monuments and boulevards, "altogether is on stage, as the city was made by pieces of time and not by slices of space". Actually some of the most interesting European studios, from Bolles+Wilson to MVRDV, Atenastudio or Bjarke Ingels, are facing this capital that has claimed the international architectural culture’s attention.

This book draws an uncommon profile of Tirana: the one of a city looking through the new century with a will of renewal that many other European cities – especially the Italian ones – seem to have lost."

Andrea Bulleri, Tirana, contemporaneità sospesa. Suspended Contemporaneity,
Quodlibet, 2012. Page details via domus

 ****************************************************