> Kunsthalle Exnergasse / Vienna
*1992, lives and works in Prishtina, Kosovo
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1 September
There I was, at Währinger Str. 59, with a pizza on my hand and the large luggage where I was sitting in a very hot sunny day, after meeting two of the kindest people who guided me there from the train since I had no wifi. They were from Iran. They knew no English and I barely understood German, but we managed somehow to talk.
My apartment was a building built in the ’50s apparently, after the war. It stood out from all the other buildings around it, and it reminded me of my Kosovo.
Walking on the streets of Vienna was my favourite time of the day. Lucky me, as I was working on the Studio of KEX, I found out that a friend of mine whom I’ve met in Sarajevo in an art project 2 years ago, was also doing an art residency in Vienna.
Since he was interested in second WW architecture, we went to visit the flak towers. It was breathtaking. (we took a lot of videos and pictures, but since it concerned his work, I’m not allowed to post any of those pictures, except this)
The first gallery, from many others that I visited, was the one at Museumsquartier. There were videos from the Yugoslavia time. Videos from Tito’s slet, Milosevic speeches, Serbian protesters… Coming from Kosovo (being part of Yugoslavia), this felt like a funny coincidence.
I got to know a lot about Vienna, the beautiful clean city really made me feel at ease. I started to think about my work.
I was reading some interesting ‘facts’ on a website that predicts the future. One of those ‘facts’ is that in 2020 the wires will start getting out of use. All the connections will be through hotspots. I decided that my work had to do with wires.
28 September
I was showing digital drawings. It’s called disuse//repurpose
It’s a work I’m still working to transition on other different mediums.
On that exact day, there were 20 art curators doing their own project. They gathered from all different places and were visiting openings, one of them being mine. I was flattered and nervous at the same time. Another funny coincidence, the curators form the nearby regions from where I come from, this being Romania and Serbia, were reacting the most about the wires. Got me thinking. We, Balkans, have the messiest wires on the streets.
30 September
It was my last day in Vienna. My visa would expire that day. I had time till 4 pm, just enough to visit Klimt’s personal collection and Schiele’s work. This note that Egon wrote that was hanging on the wall touched me the most. I was living in Landstrasse all this time too.