VENICE.- Eliza Hoxha’s curatorial concept for the Pavilion of the Republic of Kosovo at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale, presents the house as a substitute for the city. In curating the Pavilion, Hoxha revisits the ‘90s, a time during which Kosovo Albanians were expelled from all state—run institutions and thereby removed from public life. As Yugoslavia began to fall apart, the Milošević’s regime revoked Kosovo’s autonomy. In reply, Kosovo Albanians created a parallel system of public institutions in their private houses in the periphery of the city.
The Pavilion of the Republic of Kosovo titled The City Is Everywhere, is a house always in the making; unfinished because it always acquires new public functions. The private and public become one and the same. Hoxha, time and again, draws from the experience that Kosovo Albanians had in the ‘90s, a time when the entire Albanian community shrank into private houses. The house became a public space, a school, a restaurant, a promotional activity space, an office, an art gallery, a hospital and a home at the same time.
Hoxha’s explorations go beyond the dichotomous relationship between open and closed, public and private, personal and social space. Her curatorial stance reflects on how these spaces became a single entity providing freespace in the periphery of the occupied city. The City Is Everywhere situates the public in a space populated by satellites and mirrors. They stand for mental freedom, but not for the physical one. Positioned as they are in the Pavilion, they become a physical barrier and spaces of otherness, neither here nor there, free from within but occupied from without.
Eliza Hoxha was born in 1974, in Mitrovica, Kosovo. Hoxha is known for her work in the field of visual arts, music and photography. Her academic background is in architecture and urbanism. She is a PhD candidate at the Graz University of Technology, Austria. Hoxha, is an adjunct professor in the department of Civil Engineering and Architecture at the University of Pristina. For writing extensively about urban issues, Hoxha received Education and Promotion of Architecture Award from Kosovo Architect Association. Advocating for women’s right in Kosovo, Hoxha received a recognition from Kosovo Women’s Network. She is the author of the book City and Love, an urban diary about Pristina.
The exhibition book The City Is Everywhere is a collection of stories, images and memories of the ‘90s, an edited book by Eliza Hoxha, which focuses on survival strategies and social activism and its impact in the urban fabric.
Collaborators: Ardita Byci (XK), Bora Kelmendi (XK), Dasara Pula (XK), Dea Buza (XK/AL), Donika Luzhinca (AT), Dukagjin Hasimja (XK), Elisa Maxhuni (XK), Erblin Bucaliu (XK), Flakë Zeneli (AT), Gëzim Radoniqi (XK), Gresa Kastrati (AT), Ilir Gjinolli (XK), Kruno Ivanisin (HR), Leotrim Fishekgjiu (XK), Lorik Sylejmani (XK), Lulzim Kabashi (HR) and Meral Hallaqi (XK).
