Albania offered Hodža's villa to artists

Tirana - The villa of former communist dictator Enver Hoxha, symbolizing the repression that suffocated Albania for decades, is set to welcome young artists from around the world in the center of Tirana. This place is to be transformed into a space of freedom, creativity, and artistic exchange, wrote the AFP agency.

"It is a true irony of fate to promote creative freedom in this place, where decisions about censorship and bans were once made," said Bruno Julliar, director of the French foundation Art Explora, which participated in transforming Hoxha's villa into an artist residence.

The dictatorship of Enver Hoxha, who died in 1985, was one of the most repressive and bloodiest in modern European history. Modern and contemporary art was completely banned, and many artists ended up in prison. This, however, did not prevent Hoxha, who studied in France, from gathering in his personal library - accessible thanks to this project - several titles that would have sent any Albanian to prison or to an even worse fate during the dictatorship. These included a book on sex and racism in the United States and on communism in Central Europe, including the Prague Spring.

The artist residency is named Villa 31 x Art Explora and will welcome 22 artists from approximately 15 countries as part of its first year. All of them have committed to working on the theme of social layers - a topic that was unimaginable during the dictatorship. Young Italian researcher and video artist Genny Petrotta arrived a few days ago. According to her, the space encourages her to introspection and creativity.

"When I wake up in the morning, I write down my dreams because I have quite absurd things here. In a way, they act like dramatic emotional theater and influence my writing. It is important to be here because it brings something unexpected into my work," she said. This house reminds her of the classic plays of Hamlet and Macbeth; she will be working on a modern performance about power games in the villa.

The villa, where the Hoxha family lived until the fall of communism in early 1991, was located in the heart of a district inaccessible to most Albanians, guarded day and night by police and secret agents. Today, there are many bars and cafes, and the house has been completely rebuilt while retaining some period furniture and huge paintings in the style of social realism.

"This space will be used for everything that Enver Hoxha despised... so much so that he will have to turn in his grave," exclaimed Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama. "This is exactly what this house of ghosts will be today: a 'house of modernist degeneration'," Rama said at the opening of the residency in mid-January, referring to the vocabulary used by the then dictatorship to discredit artists.

Ukrainian Stanislava Pinchuk, living in Sarajevo, is part of the first group of artists to participate in the residency program at the former Hoxha villa. She is known for her drawings, installations, and sculptures and wants to study how space preserves memory while bearing witness to political events that violate human rights. "This house feels incredibly heavy; everything in it breathes pain and tension," says the Ukrainian.

"By welcoming artists from different countries, this place will support international and interdisciplinary artistic exchange in the heart of the Balkans," said the artistic director of the foundation, Blanche de Lestrange, to the AFP agency.

In a hiding place behind a private cinema, doors leading to the basement of the villa, a direct entrance into Enver Hoxha's paranoia, reveal a network of tunnels and nuclear shelters several kilometers long. Years of abandonment and closed corridors and tunnels are gnawed by time and moisture. But Albanian architect and visual artist Gerta Xhaferaj, who lives and works in Switzerland, wants to transform them into an artwork. "What do they hide? Not just literally, but symbolically, what do they represent? I want to uncover this underground world and transform the secrets into art," explains the resident.

This historic place, once belonging to the dictatorship, will now embody freedom and the future, writes AFP.