ABOUT:
Where does concrete end and Albania begin? Or rather, where does Albania’s ideology end and its casting into concrete begin?
Concrete Albania brings together observations and research by Fabrizio Bellomo, an Italian artist who explores the layered, contradictory transformation of Albania. In this country, concrete is not just a material but a language and a symbol: once the rigid emblem of communism, today the bold signature of Balkan turbo-capitalism. Albania’s path—marked by isolation and a long, painful, unfinished transition—remains unique among post-communist countries.
Yesterday’s Albania was built in poor, rough, grey concrete: prefabricated homes, bunkers, shelters and prisons. Today it is shaped by smooth, vertical, “visionary” concrete—luxury housing, towers, resorts and cultural façades.
Albania has become a kingdom of construction: one of the highest shares of GDP in Europe, millions of new square metres in Tirana, dozens of planned skyscrapers, and an economy in which construction dominates. In a country that produces little else, concrete has become the only true national product and the clearest metaphor of its extreme transition—from poverty to the Dubai dream, from collectivisation to rooftop bars.
Once people spoke of the “concretisation of thought”; today thought itself is concreted. Building everywhere is called modernity, while each new structure quietly buries culture and memory.
Bellomo does not accuse—he reveals. Through images of unfinished stairways, suspended balconies and sealed windows, he records what Albanians prefer not to see and gives voice to those about to be erased by a new pour of concrete. The catalogue becomes a quiet hymn to unfinished houses and fragile hopes, inviting us to read Albania’s history through what it has built—and destroyed.
In the end, Concrete Albania is both an art project and a silent political reflection, an open window onto recent Albanian history.
Because, ultimately, concrete is an archive.
Curated By : Elton Koritari
Dimensions : 210mm x 280mm
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