An article by Suzanne Podcast broadcast on T7, dedicated to the fifth edition of the Autostrada Biennale in Prizren.
In Prizren, from Saturday (July 4) you can see a light pulsating from the Clock Tower. It is not an alarm light. It is a beating heart. The heart of an artist, connecting in real time with a city that has always had its own special pulse, with a rhythm of mixed times, lost moments, heartbeats during survival.
This pulse perhaps best expresses the breathing Highway Biennale 2025, cure this year from Erzen Shkololli, the artist and curator from Peja who knows the pulse of contemporary art, not only in Kosovo, very well.
The artists who are coming to Prizren this year are not only coming to exhibit themselves. They are coming to listen to the city. And to (re)capture as a projection or reflection what they feel, with an increased care towards the most eclectic and emblematic city of Kosovo. The Biennial extends through hammams, old houses, former military barracks of a bygone era, and the exhibited art does not stand on or within these physical spaces with their histories, but grows within them. It leaves narrative and aesthetic roots within them.
From the scents of decorative mosaics created with Eastern spices, to the pulsating lights, from drawings that speak of trauma to objects that create a new family, invited artists like Fishkin, Muçolli, Gabris, Kastrati, Milazim, Rizaj, Coley and many other stars have one thing in common: they work with memory as a feeling, not as museum pieces.
And Shkololli, as curator, does not lead this biennial with TikTok noise or Instagram obsession, but with his own familiar rhythm that leads you from space to space without prejudice and without insistence on absolute truths.
Ultimately, this doesn't seem like a biennial that will insist on keeping the visuals in mind (although Shkololli's aesthetic vision is sharp). But for how you can feel when you step out into the alleys of Prizren, past old Ottoman houses, communist buildings, and encountering a new pulse in this old city (and narrative).
Link: https://suzannepodcast.substack.com/p/pulsi-i-ri-i-qytetit-te-vjeter
The 5th edition of the Autostrada Biennale “Unfolding Currents: The Pulse of Time”, curated by Erzen Shkololli, will be held from July 5 to October 5, 2025. For the artists, exhibition spaces and curatorial concept, read here: https://autostradabiennale.org/sq/biennale-2/ediocioni-5/koncepti-kuratorial/
edition
t7 live
