In collaboration with Art Explora, OHI documented and disseminated the artistic practices, research trajectories, and reflections of artists participating in the Vila 31 Residency Program in Tirana, housed in the former home of dictator Enver Hoxha. Functioning as both an archival and dialogical platform, these in-depth interviews explore how the political, historical, and geographic context of Tirana, and the symbolic weight of Vila 31 itself, shape and transform artistic research and creative processes. Bringing together artistic experimentation and the public reappropriation of a historically charged site, the project offers a unique perspective on the intersections of memory, history, and contemporary artistic practice.

 

This research has been designed and directed by Diona Budima, with Ana Morina as camera and editor.

Nita Deda


The program of the residency, of Art Explora in this villa, it’s an open call that is inviting artists to apply with an idea of a research or a project that they would like to develop. And from this call, there was a jury of six members that is selecting up to 30 artists a year. These artists apply from more than a 100 countries from the world. So from all over the world. And the sessions are divided into three sessions a year. These artists, they live in the, they live in the house. There’s a studio, they have a studio space, and they have a working and living space here. They have a grant to develop a new work. And they also have a lot of help from the team, us here, to link them to the local context and to also link them to the scene here and to help them develop the research that they want to do […] For the Albanian artists that are part of the residency, this, it’s more of an emotional journey, I would say. This is what I’ve seen. [Diona Budima:] A lot of them told us that they were having very vivid dreams when they came here. [Nita Deda:] Yes, yes. And there was one idea. I don’t know if that’s going to happen, but we had one artist that had a very good idea of putting a box and of people writing their dreams, of what they’re dreaming here, and maybe after ten years, to have an archive of what people are dreaming here. And maybe after ten years to open up. I think it was Stanislava Pinchuk that had this idea of– then after ten years to open up this, and to maybe, like, do something to this archive of dreams here. But yeah, I mean, for example, Stanislava also connected to her own upbringing. It’s not that, you know, that this is a trigger of also like other similar realities, you know, of growing up in the Soviet Union, for example.