Bora Baboçi (b, 1988 in Tirana, Albania) lives and work in Shkodra, Albania. She studied architecture in the University of Toronto and holds a master in the same field from the Polytechtic University of Catalonia. After several years of research and teaching architecture and spatial disciplines, since 2017 she works as a freelance in spatial research and art. Residencies: ZK/U Zentrum fur Kunst und Urbanistik, Berlin (2017), Art House School, Shkodra (2017), ArtePollino Cultural Association, Latronico (2018), Eva International Biennal, Liberick (2019), Il Lazzaretto, Online (2020). Shows include: School of Waters – Mediterranea Biennal for Young Artists, San Marino (2021), A for Unapologetic Ambitions, DOMA Art Foundation with Vaska Emanouilova Gallery, Sofia, Bulgaria (2021) National Gallery of Arts, Albania (2021), Eva International Biennale, Limerick, Ireland (2020), Del Tempo Fossile – Mula Museo di Latronico, Latronico, Italy (2019), Mur mur murmurim – Bazament Art Space, Albania (2019), Ex-Gratia, Collezione Giusseppe Iannacone, Italy (2018).
Lazaret on the Shore
Four day long livestream
Shown during the Festival de la Peste, November 2020
2020
Lazaret on the shore is a parallel location of quarantene somewhere by the waters. Lazaret on the shore is a section from a house in Shkodër where I moved in for a residency with Il Lazzaretto in September of 2020. The upper level of the house has been transformed into a composition inspired by the salinas of the Mediterranean coast. The setting uses the aesthetics of these men-made environments with strong color changes depending on light and humidity, to evoke ways of sheltering, releasing and reflecting on enstranged states of being. A structure in the form of a paravent, or a tryptic, with white rossettes painted on the surface, stands in the middle of the composition. During a four day long livestream of the composition, 4 times a day I read these floreal geometries in an act that resembles prayer.
Rites of Spring (Ritet e pranveres)
Drawing and montage on cardboard
2020
At the salinas of Narta the waters are hostile, the landscape is almost barren with no predators, but with migratory birds nesting their offspring on open grounds. Their colorful aesthetics oscillate during the year depending on humidity, heat and light – the undertones of pink become the colors of an ecology struggling to thrive not in flowing waters but in stagnant ones. During the pandemic this ambiguous environment, suggesting an almost sacred dimension, becomes a reference for the conditions of stagnation, isolation, struggle as well as an underlying and emergent life.
Rites of Spring (1) is a recycled work from several study drawings of sacred behaviors done during isolation. Montaged in a new composition, the drawings illustrate behaviors such as the hesychasm prayers, sufi dances, zar rituals, salt baths etc. As if these behaviors were to look for a scenography, an ecology, an aesthetic where to root their presence, they are eventually set in the midst of an ecosystem inspired by the Salinas of Narta in southern Albania. The montage can be seen as a study, research or collection of raw materials that in distinct perspectives have further inspired drawings, texts and performance pieces evoking different dimensions and interpretations of the sacred. The final drawing for this studies is Rites of Spring (2).
