How do you describe your own art practice?
I utilize a combination of many forms of media, predominantly public art and activism to express themes on human rights, identity, memory, gender and migration through which I tend to create platforms and collaborations regarding collective issues that I deeply care about.
Which question or theme is central in your work?
Over the years of witnessing oppression of various forms in different communities and times including my childhood growing up in the 90s Kosova, I became attached to a sense of collectivity. Within this collectivity, I saw activism happen and manifest in the most creative forms. So since then this theme became a central aspect of my work as a young artist and later when I had more platform to execute my projects and ideas.
What was your first experience with art?
I was born into an artistic environment so my first experience with art was since the early days of my life. Being surrounded by my father’s works in all corners – smells of paint , canvases stretched on the floor and a strong smell of varnish. This is how I lived as a child.
What is your greatest source of inspiration?
Listening to the struggle of others from a subjective perspective is where I gain my inspiration. The need, desire, to visualise what words sometimes cannot express, motivates my work. It is a mission for the truth, for the lost, the forgotten, the unsayable to be seen and heard. Simultaneously to that, I am also inspired by my role as a woman and mother, through which I often get to experience womanhood and its struggles from a creative yet very personal perspective.
What do you need in order to create your work?
A story. Time. Reflection.
What work or artist has most recently surprised you?
Rediscovering Artemisia Gentileschi.