Title
Untitled 1, by Klaudja Sulaj (Albania)
Creator
Contributor
Description
Klaudja Sulaj uses photography and print as a ‘machine’ that randomly delivers meaning through stints, glitches, and random machine-layering of images. She turns toward the Mediterranean and is turning the Mediterranean into truth about the meaning of being. Inspired by the notion of ‘cradle of civilization’, she combines her attitude of functioning as a seer, an empathic, channeler of spirits, conjuring images from the ‘out of life.’ In her works seem to say, “I’m a shaman. The soul has won. I have put out the origins of the pain. Listen to me My wounds have the power to heal, because I healed myself”.
(Ruba [character in Mitli Mitlak] begins to see a spirit coming back from the dead)
Ruba: (to reflection) Do you see her?! (To spirit) Come! (To reflection) tell her to come...
Reflection: (as the ego) I am the queen and I don’t have to call anybody. I don’t believe in bodies.
Ruba: Please tell her! Tell her to come! (The spirit dances.) I am extremely happy to see her, and all at once, infinitely sad that she is dead!
Reflection: I am the queen. I am the director. (Wanting to control) Look into my eyes!
Ruba: (taken back) She must be b-...she is ..is she...bad? That must be the ‘ego’. I don’t want this to get psychological. This is what I like. This is not reality...this is truth. All I know is what ‘they’ say: the ‘ego’ must die. (To the reflection) Death of you Queenie! (Ruba stabs the reflection over and over. As she kills the ego, she at the same time falls to the ground as though she is dying. She finds her way crawling to the chair to sit. Slowly she is able to stand up and walk. Little by little, she begins to dance and celebrate that she has bypassed her ego.)
The piece serves as a protective eye or healing shield in the space where it is hung. As many of Sulaj’s works, it seems to be created as part of a daily battle to counter the anti forces...the dark side of the self.
(The above text was taken from an essay in the Mitli Mitlak (Like You, Like Me) exhibition catalogue, which provides an overview of contemporary Mediterranean and Arab world art and current regional and global trends of thought. The text also illustrates the interrelations between the painting and Biba Sheikh’s literary text on which the artwork is based.)
(Ruba [character in Mitli Mitlak] begins to see a spirit coming back from the dead)
Ruba: (to reflection) Do you see her?! (To spirit) Come! (To reflection) tell her to come...
Reflection: (as the ego) I am the queen and I don’t have to call anybody. I don’t believe in bodies.
Ruba: Please tell her! Tell her to come! (The spirit dances.) I am extremely happy to see her, and all at once, infinitely sad that she is dead!
Reflection: I am the queen. I am the director. (Wanting to control) Look into my eyes!
Ruba: (taken back) She must be b-...she is ..is she...bad? That must be the ‘ego’. I don’t want this to get psychological. This is what I like. This is not reality...this is truth. All I know is what ‘they’ say: the ‘ego’ must die. (To the reflection) Death of you Queenie! (Ruba stabs the reflection over and over. As she kills the ego, she at the same time falls to the ground as though she is dying. She finds her way crawling to the chair to sit. Slowly she is able to stand up and walk. Little by little, she begins to dance and celebrate that she has bypassed her ego.)
The piece serves as a protective eye or healing shield in the space where it is hung. As many of Sulaj’s works, it seems to be created as part of a daily battle to counter the anti forces...the dark side of the self.
(The above text was taken from an essay in the Mitli Mitlak (Like You, Like Me) exhibition catalogue, which provides an overview of contemporary Mediterranean and Arab world art and current regional and global trends of thought. The text also illustrates the interrelations between the painting and Biba Sheikh’s literary text on which the artwork is based.)
Date
Coverage
Format
jpeg., 30 x 45 in
Relation
Language
English
Rights
Original Format
Digital print and Photography
Comments