Kosovo (Republic of) 2022

Title: The Monumentality of the Everyday
Commissioner: Alisa Gojani-Berisha
Curator: Inke Arns
Exhibitor: Jakup Ferri

The Kosovo Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale presents “The Monumentality of the Everyday“,  an exhibition of Jakup Ferri that features a large-scale site-specific installation displaying paintings, embroideries and carpets. Ferri took his inspiration from all kinds of other-worldly microorganisms (bacteria, viruses, fungi, archaea) as seen through an electron microscope.

The figurative paintings and embroideries are based on the artist’s slightly surreal drawings depicting everyday life involving animals, children, acrobats and utopian architecture. There are poetic interactions between people, creatures and objects, looking at each other and thus creating silent dialogues and suggesting new ways of communication between species. The hand-woven abstract carpets with geometrical patterns, on the other hand, are based on the artist’s son’s avatar designs from the computer game “Animal Crossing”.

Ferri – who for his textile works collaborates with women from Albania, Kosovo, Burkina Faso and Suriname – considers carpet-making and embroidery as techniques of coherence and community building.