Alketa Xhafa (Mripa) is a conceptual and human rights activist born in Kosovo, who due to the war moved to Great Britain, where she lives and works today. Alketa completed primary and secondary education in Kosovo and in 1997 moved to London to study fine arts at the Central Saint Martins, before going on to study at Tate Modern, London.
Since then Alketa has presented her multidimensional work at many exhibitions in Europe, including Germany, England, Italy, Portugal and, of course, her native Kosovo as well as in Albania.
Her work appears in many forms, including film, photography, painting and installation, promoting female independence and liberation, and drawing attention to the denigrating behavior of oppressive societies. Her works are inspired by the society’s need to change and are displayed in open public spaces on purpose, refusing their exposure to galleries or museums, so to communicate directly with the public.
“Even the walls have ears” is a multidimensional installation, which unfolds through simultaneous displays in several Albanian cities: Tirana, Shkodra, Gjirokastra, Korca, Tepelena and Berat. The ongoing research, reflection and on-going experience of our country’s painful past by the artist has been the incentive to bring this work to life. The “walls” are exctly what symbolizes loss of freedom and suffering in prisons and camps of the communist dictatorship from 1945-1990. Walls that hear everything, but don’t confess anything.
In this artwork, the projected texts on the wall as a painting are the symbol of hope for individual freedom, thus breaking all barriers in the pursuit of freedom and open mind: “Forgiveness is a gesture of nobility”, “We must speak openly , because silence is unacceptable “…
During her research on creating this artwork, the artist traveled throughout Albania documenting a lot of human testimonies, from those of familiar personalities of Albanian art to those of the ordinary people. Each of them has confessed their personal drama and inhuman treatment in the prisons of the communist regime. The artist projected excerpts from these conversations on the walls of public buildings in Albanian cities, from the sunset of May 8th to the sunrise of May 9th, as a visual loudspeaker for the public.
