Shkrepëtima

Synopsis

Held in 2018 in the ruins of the House of Culture in Runik, Kosovo, the performance Shkrepëtima is Halilaj’s most important intervention in a public space. It involved about a hundred people, including performers, musicians, actors and members of the community. The performance was the result of extensive research into the history of the village, from its Neolithic origins to its recent past, and intended to act as a “spark” able to rekindle its cultural development. In the film the images of the performance alternate with those made by the artist with his Go-Pro inside the building before the cleaning process of the site. The video narration follows the ‘time’ of the performance in linear fashion but has a fragmented structure, as if it were a selective memory of the experience.

Director Biography

Born in Kostërc (Kosovo) in 1986, Petrit Halilaj lives and works between Germany, Kosovo and Italy. His work has been shown in several solo exhibitions like Fondazione Merz (Turin), Zentrum Paul Klee (Bern), Hammer Museum (Los Angeles), New Museum (New York), Hangar Bicocca (Milan), Bundeskunsthalle (Bonn), National Gallery of Kosovo (Prishtina), WIELS - Contemporary Art Center (Brussels) among others. Petrit Halilaj was the first artist to represent Kosovo at the 55th Biennale di Venezia in 2013. He won the Mario Merz Prize, and the special mention of the jury of the 57th Biennale di Venezia in 2017.