If one travels across Albania, the vast post-industrial landscapes that lay in decay will inevitably be noticeable. The short yet significant history of Albania’s industrialisation remains even nowadays obscure and omitted from public discourses. However, these ruined industrial sites bear witness to the very transformations of post-socialist Albania. What is to be done with this post-industrial heritage in the present?
Drawing on practices in which art and cultural initiatives engage with the material and visual cultures of industrial decay, as well as the ways in which post-industrialism has shaped urban and rural landscapes and retrospective communities, this talk will investigate the cultural and socio-political legacies of post-industrialism in contemporary Albania.
Meet our speaker and chair
Dr Dimitra Gkitsa is a cultural practitioner and an interdisciplinary scholar working on the intersection of memory studies, contemporary art and exhibition practices, and the post-socialist visual cultures. She is currently the Alexander Nash Research Fellow in Albanian Studies at SSEES (School of Slavonic and East European Studies), University College London (UCL). Before joining UCL, Dimitra held academic positions at Goldsmiths, University of London, where she also completed her PhD in Visual Cultures, and the University of Hertfordshire. Outside academia she has collaborated with numerous non-for-profit art and cultural organisations, including the British Council in Athens and the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London.
Dr Vassilis Monastiriotis is Associate Professor in the Political Economy of South Eastern Europe at the LSE, and Director of LSEE.
Podcast
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More about this event
LSEE (@LSEE_LSE ) was officially launched at the start of the 2009-10 academic year as a research unit established within LSE's European Institute. Over the last several years LSEE has developed the School's expertise on South East Europe, drawing on the strength of existing and new academic expertise at the LSE.
The twitter Hashtag for this event is: #LSEAlbania