Fragments I: Where stories cut across the land, 2016–2017
6-channel video installation, colour, sound
ΕΜΣΤ Collection
Acquired 2022
Through video, photography, and archival material, Albanian visual artist Vangjush Vellahu explores the concepts of borders, national identity, and geopolitical shifts. His work focuses on contested territories and unrecognised states to document the personal stories of people living on the fringes of official history. The video installation Fragments I: Where the stories cut across the land unfolds a travel narrative through regions scarred by years of prolonged conflict. Amid images of destroyed, deserted, or regenerated settlements, viewers hear accounts from residents or former inhabitants of the regions of Abkhazia, which seceded from Georgia; Varosha in Famagusta, Cyprus, which is under Turkish occupation; the partially recognised state of Kosovo; Tskhinvali in partially recognised South Ossetia, Nagorno-Karabakh, which has declared independence from Azerbaijan and is also known as Artsakh; and Transnistria, the unrecognised yet de facto independent territory separated from Moldova. A defining feature of these narratives is the ways in which inhabitants devise means of existence, organisation, and survival beyond political stagnation.
Vangjush Vellahu creates installations using video, interviews, prints, and archival material. At the heart of his practice lie storytelling, collective memory, and the journey itself as a means of collecting and recording stories. During the research-based, travel-oriented preparation of his works, his Albanian background and his lived experience of recent Albanian history shape his perspective on national and territorial issues in Eastern Europe and Western Asia, particularly as these emerged in the aftermath of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Balkans occupy a central place in his research—a region often described as “the powder keg of Europe” or “a boiling cauldron”. Travelling through contested and disputed regions, in places inhabited by ethnic and religious groups with deep historical roots and equally strong claims, Vellahu pursues a microhistorical mapping of these regions, counterposing the often-silenced truth of lived experience and personal testimony to dominant historical narratives.
Vangjush Vellahu was born in Pogradec, Albania. He lives and works between Berlin and Tirana.
