Fwd: Reminder
Conceived as part of the Art Explora Durrës Festival, the installation Fwd: Reminder, by artist Bora Baboçi, explores the fragile territories of Mediterranean port areas, marked by exile, waiting and the erasure of landmarks.
Fwd: Reminder
This one container has been misplaced. Whirling winds are stuck inside of it, they sound like flutes, like a field of reeds, a body of exiles wandering in the desert. In the waters of the Mediterranean, was it not where believers endured the long await?
Delays, delays. Historic delays.
Restrained bodies. Bodies under a restraining order; a certain distance of one hundred kilometres of concrete pillars. They don’t want to stay for this is not their promised land. It is ours, though it almost wasn’t – a railroad to the port, a hasty trading route, a buffer zone against expansion, an offshore resort, a whole region left out, a revision of the sea border, an island traded for the peace of mind, a village of containers in the northern coast. What makes a country fragile?
Fwd: Reminder is a newly created installation by Bora Baboçi, reflecting on the areas by the ports and trade routes, where exchanges and negotiations shift the fragile boundaries along the Mediterranean coast.
Today with another vocabulary, extra-territorial migration centers, offshore service providers, unclear status of property and legislation – these areas have rarely seen other than the loss of the integrity of the places they are located as well as that of the individuals that are displaced between them, leaving behind allienation and uprootedness.
The people – as individuals as well as representatives of their circumstances - are cought in continuous cycles of waiting and movement. They are left in a state of suspansion, rerouted, and forced to circulate through these precarious zones that are all the more located in the poorest shores of the Mediterranean, never truly arriving at their intended destination.
Fwd: Reminder suggests the experience between exile, exhaustion and repetition in an almost ritualistic state, evoking a journey through barren lands or a call, lament or prayer that remains unanswered.
Voices: Mihal Kaçi, Alvaro Çenko, Rudian Zia, Rubin Oslo Ceka, Juliano Zholi, Alban Cenko, Kimeld Cenko
Voice production: Edit Pula
Sound engineer: Endri Pine
Text: Bora Baboçi, Rina Meta
Photography : Esad Duraki
The work was created within the framework of the Art Explora Durrës Festival "Of Cities and Women: A flute, a bell, waters" curated by Arnisa Zeqo, produced by Anima Pictures.


