With open eyes, with eyes closed

Bazament Tirana, 2018

In With Open Eyes, with Eyes Closed, the artist introduces three of her latest projects that originate in the metaphysical re-contextualization of human and cultural traces in the Albanian reality, as well as that of the Bllok neighborhood in Tirana.

In the photo taken from the photographic series Granularity of Content: a rhythmic line up of young cypresses surrounds the remains of a one storey building, resembling a temple or a holy place. In the Albanian mythology and that of the region, we encounter such images as fairies, appearing from time to time, becoming visible to the people. In this particular picture, it is not difficult to imagine these ghostly creatures dancing in the scorching heat, harmonious to the rhythm of the cypresses around the ruined building on the parched earth.

Further in the exhibition, like the images of Fairies but in a different context, there appear a group of animals subject to the film Forms of Presence, exhibited in the second space of Bazament. The opening sequence of the video displayes the perspective of a corridor, with pelts hanging on both sides, followed by portraits of embalmed animals, eyes opened, with an age long humility fixed upon their faces. Leaving room to historical, mythological, religious and life and death references, this film ends with a corridor locating the basement of a contemporary building. The location of these animals in Silva Agostini's video, and their second burial in the basement of Bazament – inside a building of Bllok neighborhood, once used as a residence for the members of the political bureau - comes as an analogy to the Albanian history during the dictatorship, that as we know it, has subdued, violated, killed and left dead bodies behind. In this video the corpses reappear as images, inviting us to see and remember.

The streets of today's Bllok in Tirana are witness to the purest possible form of Consumerism. Glamorous cars, the aggressive music, the flat tastes, and the loss of ideals are a few of the examples to be mentioned. When reality and vision over the future become unclear, there is a need to restore those ancient and yet natural ties, that man as a spiritual being has with the world. In their work, Belle Epoque symbolists such as Wagner, Nietzsche, and Baudlaire, have gone back to the mythical heritage and the legends, as a guarantee for the existence of these bonds. You meet this kind of spirit through the artist’s performance Music Requisites in the streets of Bllok, where music, storytelling and technology stand next to each other. The third act of Richard Wagner's "Die Feen" (Fairies) will be played from inside the cars parked along the street in front of the exhibition entrance. The car, part of the daily game on the streets of Bllok, which in itself stands for movement, travel, displacement from one place to another, will be animated by the Wagnerian music passages. Music and its content transcends us inside a fictional journey in the world of Fairies, magic, intrigue, violence, in the world of heroes and their supremacy. These elements can be met in the reality of Albania, you find them on the walls of the building and the animals in their underground.

In this exhibition, the artist shifts between real dimensions and those beyond, stirring up the memory and associating it with spiritual moments that live unnoticed within us. Those moments that are passed from generation to generation, in the everyday life and the realities we fabricate.