Artist Alketa Ramaj, who was part of the project “Pavilion – Art in public institutions” – an initiative of the Ministry of Culture – displayed her work titled “About a tree” in the main hall of the ministry. This oeuvre (installation), which belongs to the contemporary visual art, stayed in the aforementioned space during the dates of October 7th – December 18th 2020.
Just as the title “About a tree” forewarns us, it is the nature that constitutes the first allurement for the work in question, which revolves around a tree that speaks in order to express something through the image, the way it moves, the sounds and on the other hand, we see the effort of a human (the author) to listen/understand this language, although this all seems impossible. The installation consists of a video (lined in the shape of a window), some graphics obtained from it (the video) and sounds (audio).
This work started totally by chance in 2013. In front of the window where the artist would often stay, there was a tree, already turned into an artistic object. Spontaneously, day by day, a spiritual connection was born between the artist and the tree, a connection which with time, created a space for meditation on communication. In spite the absence of language, there was a communication on a sensory level which was more than sensitive, taking into consideration that on the other side there was just a tree. At a certain point, the author started some kind of research on the noise, the sound and maybe the language.
The whole idea came to life through the attempts to find the language of the tree, a language imperceptible to our ears. The author was not attracted by the noise of the wind shaking the branches of the tree, but from something else, entirely indefinable, that transmits a kind of communication. The tree itself, being something organic, seemed to emit threads of similarity between two organic bodies: between itself and the artist. The idea of the author was followed by attempts at searching a formula that would create some kind of graphic from which musical notes would be obtained from the movements of the tree, thus reaching the random sound that would come out of it.
After the images were extracted for each second of the video (the printed images seen on the installation are only a small piece of the whole work), they were printed and the author started outlining the images one by one and then gave them to a composer. He started to follow the rhythm of that outline through musical notes (without using a musical instrument, but his voice). This act was performed for every image of the tree. The images were placed on top of each other and the voices that came out of each sheet superimposed on each other. By uniting them together, in the end, the result was the noise that the visitor could hear. That noise sought to fulfill some sort of attempt (impossible/utopic, indeed) to hear the voice of the tree.
As for the realization of the idea, in the case of the artist Alketa Ramaj, she allows the work to follow its own path freely; the work manages to guide even the artist herself, who prefers the object/work to have a complete independence. According to the artist, it is precisely this independence that leads her as a creator towards a new recognition. The intention of the artist in this work was the sound or the noise that came from the tree.
* Alketa Ramaj graduated in 2006 from the Academy of Arts in Tirana. Her work is reprensented by an incessant curiosity and permanent study of new forms of expression, which reveals a striking independence in terms of applying her own critical and personal working methods. The emotional relationship the artist builds with the environment she lives in, in terms of social connection, historical and the political context, are reflected in her practice that develops in different mediums. She was the recipient of the 2012 Onufri Award and 2013 Ardhje Award. Her work has been exhibited in Albania and abroad in exhibitions and venues including: “Déjeuner avec Marubi”, (Wien, Austria); “Ex-Gratia”, Collezione Giuseppe Iannaccone (Milano, Italy); Bienal de Curitiba ’17 (Curitiba, Brazil); Galerie Heike Strelow (Frankfurt/Main, Germany); Viennacontemporary, (Vienna, Austria); 3rd Edition of Project Biennial of Contemporary “Art D-0 ARK Underground, Atomic Shelter”, (Konjic, BIH); Bienal del Fin del Mundo, Mar Del Plata, (Valparaiso, Chili); Fondazione Museo Pino Pascali (Bari, Italy); ISCP, international studio & curatorial program (New York, USA); Stacion, Center for Contemporar
