60. Biennale – Padiglione Kosovo

L’artista Doruntina Kastrati rappresenta il Kosovo alla Biennale di Venezia.

Comunicato stampa

the Pavilion of the Republic of Kosovo at the 60th International Art Exhibition–La Biennale di Venezia will present a sculptural installation, titled The Echoing Silences of Metal and Skin which addresses feminized labor and workplace inequality. Investigating the joint deindustrialization of the economy and deregulation of the labor market, Doruntina Kastrati encounters the (im)material forms of precarious employment in light industries in the aftermath of the 1999 Kosovo War, a period marked by a radical and abrupt transition from a socialist to free-market system. Partaking in wage labor has granted women a measure of financial independence and social enfranchisement. Alas, far from being emancipatory, the feminization of labor in industries like food production has perpetuated traditional gender roles. Further, since such jobs offer dim prospects for upward mobility, this development has rendered women economically vulnerable and pushed them to the political margins.

The Echoing Silences of Metal and Skin brings women’s narratives into public view. The project draws on oral histories that the artist conducted with female employees of a Turkish delight factory in Prizren, Kosovo’s second largest city and the artist’s hometown. Kastrati brings to the forefront the perspectives and experience of these women, who produce approximately ten thousand boxes of the titular sweets on a daily basis. The work at the factory is repetitive and performed from a standing position. Nearly one third of the women working at this factory undergo knee replacement surgery. The metal objects that are implanted in their knees are traces of the long hours they work for low wages. Intending to prompt critical reflection on why and how exploitative labor practices have persisted, the artist engages with the embodied characteristics of materials, particularly metal.

The installation consists of four freestanding sculptures modeled after the shells of different types of nuts that are used as ingredients in Turkish delights. Activated by a sound, the sculptures build a distinctive rhythm in the exhibition space. Made from various metals, they simultaneously allude to surgical implants and industrial manufacturing. Through her choice of materials, Kastrati recreates the machinic coldness of the Turkish delight factory and the eerie coolness of the foreign metal on the workers’ knees. Charged with symbolic meaning while referencing the estrangement of working-class women, the pavilion’s constituent parts honor first-person narratives and create incisive associations.

PUBLICATIONS
The Echoing Silences of Metal and Skin will be complemented by a research-based publication which consists of oral histories with former employees of a Turkish Delights factory based in Prizren, Kosovo. The interviewees: Fitnete Veselaj Kastrati, Shaije Dulaku, and Mimoza Mici, accompanied by photographic documentation of Turkish delights factory by Majlinda Hoxha. While the exhibition catalog will be published during the course of the Venice Biennale and will consist of critical texts by Erëmirë Krasniqi, Adam Szymczyk, Dita Dobranja, and a conversation between Doruntina Kastrati and Pınar Öğrenci. The catalog will be printed and bound in Estonia by Tallinna Raamatutrükikoda, and distributed by Mousse Publishing. Designed by Ott Kagovere.

PRESS PREVIEW
The press preview of Doruntina Kastrati's presentation will take place on Thursday, April 18, 2024 at 2 p.m. at the Pavilion of the Republic of Kosovo, hosted by the Museo Storico Navale (Riva S. Biasio, 2148, 30122 Venezia). The opening and launch of the research publication The Echoing Silences of Metal and Skin will follow, from 3–5 PM.

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Doruntina Kastrati is a visual artist based in Prishtina, Kosovo. Her artistic practice spans across sculpture, installation, and moving image. In 2014, she was awarded the Young Visual Artist Award from the National Gallery of Kosovo, and she won the Hajde x 6 Award from the Hajde Foundation in 2017. She was a resident at the International Studio and Curatorial Program (ISCP) in New York in 2015, a resident at Art House in Shkodër in 2018, and at Initiators in Athens in 2018. Her work was recently shown at Eugster Belgrade, A picture of pistachios destroying the railroad tracks to cut off the path of delights (2023); Ring The Bells My Land at Manifesta 14, Prishtina (2022); Temel at Hessel Museum, New York (2022); Life without buildings at ETH Zurich (2022); Here (Air Carries Poison But Yet We Breathe) at ChertLüdde, Berlin (2021), What if a Journey, Autostrada Biennale, Prizren (2021); Bigger than Myself–Heroic Voices from ex Yugoslavia, MAXXI Museum, Rome (2021); Not Fully Human, Not Human at All at Kadist Foundation, Paris, and Kunstverein Hamburg, Hamburg (2021-2022); Tirana Patience, National Gallery of Arts, Tirana (2020); Public Heroes and Secrets, The National Museum of Kosovo (2020), among others.

Artist: Doruntina Kastrati
Curator: Erëmirë Krasniqi
Commissioner: Hana Halilaj, the National Gallery of Kosovo
Venue: Museo Storico Navale (Riva S. Biasio, 2148, 30122 Venezia)
Organizer: Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports of the Republic of Kosovo