The Unstraight Alliance Art Residency project aims to continue the development of art as a way of practicing emancipatory politics. Selected artists are expected to work with the local LGBT community, developing a work that addresses, in an artistically acute manner, the current political and social situation of the LGBT community in Albania. For four weeks the artist is invited to engage with the community and produce work in Tirana, which should result in a work (or works) that target both the local and an international audience to rethink contemporary issues of exclusion, discrimination, gender, and sexuality. The work should explicitly aim to be emancipatory force for the Albanian LGBT community.
In 2013, the Unstraight Alliance Art Residency selected Swedish artist Sofia Hultin and Albanian cinematographer Ergys Meta to produce a new work together with the Albanian LGBT community. Hultin developed the concept of a “lesbian city walk,” to articulate geographically the presence of the lesbian community in Tirana by collecting and representing both public and personal stories that reflect on how political and social movement affect the individual experience. Meta will present his short movie Come Inside Me, the story of a gay couple whose love is destroyed and the revenge that follows.
A project by Elvis Hoxhaj for Aleanca Kundër Diskriminimit të LGBT, the Unstraight Museum, and The Department of Eagles. Curated by Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei. FAB Gallery, Tirana, Albania, 2013. Contributing artists: Sofia Hultin and Ergys Meta. Documentation by Xheni Alushi. With financial support of the Swedish Institute.