Jora Vaso and Theo Napoloni arrive at Tirana Art Lab contemporary art centre with the exhibition “The(re is no) Mark on the Wall” during 29 September – 30 October 2018, curated by Romeo Kodra.
The exhibition is in itself is a photographic observation in time, seen in two interconnected, social and political perspectives. On the one hand, the grotesque presentation of the Albanian reality through digital imaging; on the other hand, the reflection of important social movements thanks to the combination of photography and drawing on the background of ordinary objects. It is about movements that have desperately aimed the U turn of the Albanian society from time to time.
Digital snapshots by artist Jora Vaso are placed in the shape of a spider-web reminding us of the trap the society has fallen in due to its internet addiction. Hostage of the social media, the society is overflowing with data (information) already at its service, but there is little civic counteraction. And perhaps even the allegory based on the spider-web weaving phenomenon aims precisely at this.
Jora Vaso uses the phone as a working tool (Smartphone). Quite naturally come the sights by her selected; indeed, behind these images is an attentive, analytical, critical and sarcastic eye. Dense and overwhelming views, suffocation and apathy reveal the unpleasant side of city and society, which many disregard. Jora, in fact, chooses to do the opposite.
If Jora chooses to reflect today’s society, Theo Napolon opts for essential moments that culminate in socio-political movements. The artist s sarcasm goes all the way. The well-known images already selected and drawn by him are those who exhibit violence, a struggle for victory, a sense of divisiveness for the past, but all of these images are filled with regret and irony from the perspective of the citizen and the artist who witnessed it event by event and not reaching the desired conclusion for 27 years, the Albanian society lost its dignity in the eyes of contemporaries.
* Jora Vaso is a Doctoral Student at the Pomeranian University in Slupsk and content editor of the tourism platform intoalbania.com. She has published on the topics of return, nostalgia, and language in local and international conferences and journals. She earned two Bachelor’s degrees in Comparative Literature and Advertising and a Master’s in International Business from University of Georgia and Georgia State University. After residing in the US for sixteen years, she returned to her homeland and is currently residing in Poland for the duration of her studies. Jora has had a photo exhibition in Gdansk Poland in May of 2018 entitled “Resilience: The City as Cure”.
* Theo Napoloni is a visual artists and a professional musician currently living and working between Durrësi and Tirana. In his artistic work, mostly paintings, the individual and collective memories – oscillating between indelible traumas symptomatic erasures – are reproduced in their precarious ephemerality. Regarding his formation, from 1995 to 1999 he studied at the high artistic school “Tefta Tashko Koço”, in Korça, and from 1999 to 2003 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Tirana, where he graduated in painting. Since 2003 Theo has had numerous exhibitions in Albania, USA, Netherlands, and Greece.
