Astrit Ismaili

With this new commission, Astrit Ismaili expands on his previous research on tepsijanje. The film created for Gjon Mili sheds light on the supposed divide between ancestral knowledge systems and what lies ahead. Ismaili reminds us that the skills we inherited from mothers and grandmothers, shaped to perfectly adapt to local environments, were in fact technologies. In his work, we encounter a metaphorical, genderless figure: the singer. Their voice, having travelled rivers, seas, continents and galaxies, reached the sun and sung: 

I shine in the dark. There lies the most sophisticated technology. A wearable skin, an extension of myself, of my body. I am what I am, and what I am is what I want to become. Where I come from, a mountain cried centuries. A compassionate mountain, she felt the pain and suffering to come. Her tears were our water. We walked miles carrying glasses on our hips. As we walked on toes, step by step, we dangled on a line, balancing life and death. Glasses were filled, drop by drop. And we peacefully walked home. One drop per day. Two glasses for a life-time. Meanwhile, all we ate were sun rays. One ray per day, each day, until nothing remained on the tray. 

The artist refers to the concept of Illyrian Futurism, shifting ideas of a tradition perceived as “backwards”, and reclaiming practices like the pan, which he describes as the world’s first voice processor. As the singer projects their voice in the pan, spinning it into oblivion, their voice alters. They invite us to enter new dimensions. A portal of transformation. A teleportation tool. Branching off from the tepsija, a practice born from gendered and domestic spheres, Astrit Ismaili’s piece imagines a future in which the singer from the past meets the one from the present-future.