The work
The work documents women's singing practices in the polyphonic tradition in Derviçan (Albania). The project traces voice as a medium in the folklore tradition through a polyphonic topography of sound materiality. A double belonging between languages and cultures in the margins, offers ways of looking unto forms of “Souths” in Europe, gestures shaping an architecture of voices, and the hierarchical migration practices impacting the latter. Through singing sessions, recordings, interviews and the transcription and translation of text songs, the project explores how language and music are connected to the territory, to practices of migration and (un)mobility. Bodies are both archives and medium trajectories interrupted, but yet ongoing of preservation and activation.
Endi Tupja and Klodianna Millona developed I had white cotton in my yard in 2023 during their EMAP residency at Onassis Stegi (GR).
The artists
Endi Tupja is an artist based between Berlin and Tirana. Her research centers on experimenting with strategies of memory recuperation, visuality and the subverted geographies influencing identity and history. Her project at Centrale Fies, Free School of Performance (Dro/Italy), further expanded her research in performative writing and staging techniques of Albanian female voices in the Italian context. She was awarded the research Grant CAS SEE Fellowship University of Rijeka Center for Advanced studies South East Europe for her research on female micro biographies and colonial subjugations in the Mediterranean. Currently Tupja is focusing on performative writing and micro biographies in the space of live performance and video installation. She recently participated in the Residency Program AiR: Neither Land Nor See at UNIDEE Fondazione Cittadellarte (Biella/Italy).
Klodiana Millona (1990,AL) is a spatial and visual practitioner, researcher and educator, working at the intersection of space, text and the moving image. Her research concerns minor, marginal and invisible architectures, spatial justice and geographies of resistance. She is a resident at Jan van Eyck Academy and is currently working on migration as spatial practice.
CREDITS
Sound: Endri Pine
Women Singers: Katerina Koça, Dhimitrulla Xerra, Kostando Xerra, Krisulla Liço, Vasillo Qirjaku, Agathi Baruta
Translating and interpreting of texts in Greek: Eleni Riga
Project realized within the EMAP European Media Art Platform and Residency Program at Onassis Stegi (GR).
Images: courtesy of the artists.
