Artists Help Albania Exorcise Its Old Dictator's Home

Umer Jamshaid Published February 20, 2025 | 03:00 PM

Tirana, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 20th Feb, 2025) The home of Albania's former paranoid dictator is welcoming young artists from around the world in the country's latest step to shake off its hermetic past.

"What a slap in the face to history it is to promote this freedom of creation in this former seat of power, where censorship and prohibitions were decided," said Bruno Julliard, the director of the Art Explora Foundation.

It helped transform the home of former communist leader Enver Hoxha in Tirana -- a "ghost villa" heavy with the secrets of the country's dark past -- into a new, chic residency.

With the first arrivals having settled in last month, the villa with its original furniture and Socialist Realist art will host 22 artists from around 15 different countries this year.

Among them Genny Petrotta, a young researcher and video artist from Italy, who told AFP that it was already inspiring her.

"Every day when I wake up, I write down my dreams because here I have absurd dreams," she said, adding that the house reminded her of "Macbeth" and "Hamlet", Shakespeare's chilling dissections of power and vengeance.

"In a way, (my dreams) act like a dramatic emotional theatre and affect my writing. It's important to be here because it adds something unexpected to my work," she added.