But you, yourself, with your own hand must open this door – group show at Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster, featuring: Edona Ademi, Djellza Azemi, Bora Baboçi, Anjesa Dellova, Blerta Haziraj, Doruntina Kastrati, Anita Muçolli, Leart Rama, Abi Shehu, Dardan Zhegrova.
2 March – 19 May 2024
But you, yourself, with your own hand must open this door, a line from the poem Dera magjike (“The Magic Door”) written by the Yugoslavian poet, Mira Alečković in the 1940s, is the title of the group exhibition that will open at the Westfälischer Kunstverein in Münster in Spring 2024. The project is dedicated to a generation of young artists who live in Kosovo and Albania or whose origins can be traced back to these countries. Although the region is united in part by a common language area, it has a complex history characterised by ethnic, cultural and political differences. In a hyper-connected world, there is a major impetus among the young populace to contribute to the shaping of the future. The exhibition presents works by artists born in the early 1990s who deal with our fragile present, which is currently once more defined and riven by a geopolitical mindset of division.
But you, yourself, with your own hand must open this door aims to use a range of artistic strategies to provide different points of view on a region that is equally on the periphery and at the centre. For artists in the ethnic diaspora, the region itself is associated with both a diffuse sense of nostalgia and cross-generational trauma; for the local scene, it represents an inspiring resonance chamber that – with its borders, constraints and conditions – simultaneously differs and separates itself from the permeability of a European cultural landscape.
The poetic title of the exhibition with its insistent, threefold direct address (you, yourself, your own) immediately sets up a mode of individualisation and invokes our shared personal responsibility and agency amid a host of global issues, strife and conflicts. The stories, biographies and myths collected here, in which it is often impossible to draw distinct boundaries between political and private spheres, generate narratives that are as coherent as they are contradictory, thus opening up an important arena for ambiguity and the tolerance thereof. At the same time, visitors are directly addressed and invited to approach the artists and their respective stories and thereby embark on a journey to a region that seems geographically close but often remote in our minds.
Curated by Cathrin Mayer and Kristina Scepanski.