The video work It would not be possible to leave the planet Earth unless Gravity Existed by Driant Zeneli reflects upon the toxic communist legacy in Albania. In the center of the work is the Metalurgjiku plant built by the Chinese in the 1960-1970s, which processed the heavy metals that supplied the whole Albanian industry. Mario is a man who has always had the passion to fly and build airplanes and has the persistent desire to reach a faraway place, in the outer space. In the core of the video is a story, which the artists calls a simultaneous rendezvous between utopia and dystopia: Mario and Metallurgik, a proof of the failure of a project which was part of an ideal society, the one of Albanian communism.
Driant Zeneli (1983, Shkoder, Albania) lives between Milan and Tirana.
He represented Albanian Pavilion at the 58th International Art Exhibition – Venice Biennale, 2019.
In 2017 he won the MOROSO Prize and in 2009 the Young European Artist Award Trieste Contemporanea. He was the artistic director of Mediterranea 18, the Young Artists Biennale from Europe and Mediterranean, taking place for the first time in 2017 between Tirana and Durres.He is co-founder of Harabel Contemporary Art Platform, Tirana.
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