The Autostrada Biennale
What If a Journey…
Curated by Övül Ö. Durmuşoğlu and Joanna Warsza
Autostrada Biennale is pleased to announce the artists, ideas, venues, and dates of its third edition.
Prishtina: July 1–September 11, 2021
Agnes Denes; Petrit Halilaj & Alvaro Urbano
Prizren: July 17–September 11, 2021
Agnes Denes, Alban Muja, Agnieszka Polska; Agron Blakçori, Banu Cennetoğlu, Bora Baboçi, Camila Rocha, Cooking Sections & Fejsal Demiraj, Doruntina Kastrati, Edona Kryeziu, Fernando García-Dory, Flaka Haliti, Gülsün Karamustafa, HAVEIT, Hera Büyüktaşcıyan, Iman Issa, Iramamama, Małgorzata Mirga-Tas & Edis Galushi, Marwa Arsanios, Núria Güell & Lumnije Gërguri Stojkaj, Rossella Biscotti, Sezgin Boynik & Tevfik Rada, Ulf Aminde & Manuel Gogol, Vahida Ramujkić, Valbona Zherka
Peja: July 19–September 11, 2021
Ex-EXIT with Agush Beqiri, Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin
What If a Journey… is an exhibition about the unfinished. It can be a road, an electrification map, a house, a flower field, a story, a relationship, or a country. It is an exhibition that takes incompleteness as an invitation to respond, to relate, and to grow.
What If a Journey… is an exhibition about two ends of the road that meet in between a host and a guest, in between the diasporic and the local, in between infrastructure and intimacy.
What If a Journey… is also an exhibition about art as a form of recovery from everyday traps. It takes you on a road trip starting in the center of Prishtina, continuing along the Lumbardhi River in Prizren, and ending in an art bar in Peja.
“In our first research trip to Prizren in the fall of 2020, we listened to stories in need of being heard: from artists, organizers, food ethnologists, a Romani activist, a heritage conservator, an urban sociologist, and a philosopher, among many others. The exhibition was created in response to those stories. Additionally, a woven cluster of overlapping roads by artist Valbona Zherka offered us an orientation map composed from river flows, migration paths, positive irregularities, and u-turns. The third Autostrada Biennale is an invitation to embark on an incomplete journey, in and out of Kosovo—to Berlin, Istanbul, Warsaw, and back. Or somewhere in between.”
—Övül Ö. Durmuşoğlu and Joanna Warsza, curators of the third Autostrada Biennale
Autostrada Biennale was established by two artists and a pedagogue in 2014. As the only contemporary art institution in Prizren, Kosovo, it functions on two speeds: one is a physical exhibition taking place in public space every two years, the second is a long-term educational center in the former Kosovo Force (KFOR) camp, where the exhibition preparation process is open to the public, making creation of the artworks a form of learning and critical thinking.
Autostrada Biennale is made possible with the generous support and partnership of the Swiss Cooperation Office in Kosovo, Prishtina Municipality, European Cultural Foundation, Foundation of Art Initiatives, Prizren Municipality, Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports in Kosovo, Manifesta 14 Prishtina, The 5th Annual Kosovo Pride Week, United Nations Kosovo Team, UNDP, KFOS, Raiffeisen Bank, Goethe Zentrum Prishtina, SAHA Foundation, Italian Institute for Culture in Tirana, Regional Center for Culture Heritage in Prizren, National Library of Kosovo, Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, Institut Ramon Llull, ADN Galeria, Prizren Bus Station, Archeological Institute of Kosova, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Prishtina, JYSK, ITP Prizren, DokuFest, Lumbardhi Foundation, Anibar and Kultplus alongside Mor Charpentier, Galerist, Wilfried Lentz, ChertLüdde.
Autostrada Biennale Education and Production Space is supported by the US Embassy in Prishtina, Prizren Municipality, Gjirafa, and Kreativ Qeramika.
Autostrada Biennale is grateful for the generous support of numerous individual work and conversation partners in Prishtina, Prizren and Peja who made this edition possible.
Come along physically or online.