The project is currently exhibited in Tirana at the hbs gallery on SKANDERBEG Square. 

What Remains

Photographs as Silent Witnesses of Rupture, Loss, and Renewal

The 1990s marked one of the most dramatic turning points in Albania’s history, a decade in which nearly half a century of rigid order gave way to the disorienting promises of freedom.
It was in this crucible of transformation that my photographic work in Albania began. For over a decade, I kept a close watch, building an archive that was both deeply personal and historically significant.

But in 2007, a fire devastated our home and destroyed my negatives from the 1990s. Only a few images survived, many scarred by smoke, stained by water, or partially burned.

The story could have ended there.
But in 2023, with renewed courage, I began to revisit the damaged negatives. Through scanning, arranging, and creating collages from the charred fragments, something new emerged: images that hover between photography and art, history and memory, testimony and dream.

In many ways, the 1990s are not yet over in Albania. It was the fastest-moving, most turbulent decade the country has ever experienced. Freedoms arrived suddenly, but so did instability, disillusionment, and trauma. Much of what was lived so intensely remains unprocessed, even as many of today’s challenges are rooted in that restless time.

Like the burned negatives, parts of this history are scarred, darkened or nearly erased.

The Making of the Collages

After the devastating fire in 2007 that destroyed over 90% of my negatives from Albania, I couldn’t face the remaining material for a long time. The few surviving films were damaged, burnt, stained, warped and too painful to look at.

Only years later, encouraged by my Curator I began scanning the fragments. What started as an act of archiving became a deeply personal and creative process. As I went through the damaged images, I stopped trying to reconstruct the past and began to shape something new from it.

The collages emerged naturally: I brought together people I had photographed in different places and at different times. Once placed side by side, new narratives and relationships developed.

By letting go of the usual rules of photography, I allowed intuition and emotion to guide me. The traces of fire, water, and time were not hidden, they became part of the story.

These collages are not reconstructions of what was lost but transformations: turning destruction into a space for new meaning where memory, time, and personal experience merge.