MALL
Co-production Nouveau Printemps 2025
Exhibition Hall – Bibliothèque d'études et du patrimoine
Extended until September 21, 2025
It would take several words to come close to the meaning of the Albanian word mall, which conveys at once a painful nostalgia, a deep longing, an intense desire for someone or something that is absent. In a migratory context, it becomes a central word—a way of expressing the “presence of absence” in everyday life. It is almost a way of keeping what is absent alive, a silent engine sustaining the bond with the other.
The artist explores the fragility of anchors—through the lens of solitude and the absence of the other—in the context of her hometown in Albania. This absence carries a particular tone here, as Albania has long been familiar with the wound of migration. Absence is integrated as a natural part of life, and the question often asked is “why did you stay?” rather than “why did you leave?”
“I began searching for ‘altars of memory’ and quickly understood that these vernacular, informal, and intimate installations are primarily a women’s affair, where the absent becomes an icon and the installation an iconostasis—a distinctly Balkan decor, a symbolic doorway between earthly and celestial life. Migration or death, I wanted to understand how photos and objects allow the loved one to be present, to exist—as a proof of connection, of the other.”
To make family is to make do with absence, and to find in the negative—as in the negative of a photograph—the means to give presence to someone who is no longer, or not yet, here. I save a place for you; physically, you are with me.
Photos 1, 2, 12, 13, 14, 15 : © Vincent Beaume
Photos 3 to 11 : © Mariana Kostandini
Artwork exhibited as part of the group exhibition Faire Famille, curated by Yandé Diouf for the 2025th edition of Le Nouveau Printemps - Kiddy Smile, together with :
Malala Andrialavidrazana
Raphaël Barontini
Binta Diaw
Penda Diouf
Alice Diop
Brandon Gercara
Laura Henno
Mariana Kostandini
Angelica Mesiti
Marie-Claire Messouma Malambien
Roméo Mivekannin
Verena Paravel
Le Nouveau Printemps 2025 by Kiddy Smile
