Kosovo 2018

Title: “the CITYisEVERYWHERE”
Commissioner: Jehona Shyti
Curator/Exhibitor: Eliza Hoxha

The Pavilion’s concept revolves around the idea of ”house” as a compensation for the city. During ‘90s Kosovo Albanians were expelled from all activities of public institutional life because of the political conflicts in ex—Yugoslavia. Due to that Kosovo Albanians created a parallel system of public institutions into their private houses in peripheral areas of the city. The pavilion space named “The City Is Everywhere” is a house always on the making and somehow unfinished because of these new additional public functions. The inside represents the outside at the same time. All public life of Albanians during ‘90s for 10 years were provided into these inside private spaces opened by by Kosovo Albanians for public uses. The house became a metaphor for the city—it was a public space / a school / a gallery / a hospital / a shop / a café and a home at the same time. Besides the dichotomy between open and close, of public and private space, family space and social space they came together and merged to recreate and deliver new free spaces dispersed in the edge areas of the occupied city. So, the inside is a room and at the same time a public space/institution. The space surrounded by mirrors creates an effect of extended space and openness as a metaphor of psychological freedom, but not the physical one as such, since the mirror is yet a physical barrier and juxtaposition, you’re there but you’re not there, you’re free inside but still occupied.