The Made in Kosovo show has been compiled from the works of two Kosovan and one Hungarian photographer and it brings to life everyday events that have since become history. The artists attempt to offer a comprehensive report of contemporary life in Kosovo, an unavoidable part of which is the declaration of independence issued in February 2008 but questioned by many ever since.
It is interesting and perhaps understandable that Pörneczi has a slightly different approach from the two Kosovan photographers who had obviously seen the events as insiders. The Hungarian photographers? works are all black and white, which lends the series a dark-toned pathos. Poultry sellers offering their goods around rubbish containers in suburban Pristina and piled-up washing machines and gas heaters offered for sale in the strange mutation of a shopping mall and market with custom-made stands in a half-finished building in suburban Mitrovica are like images from a surrealist film.
Pörneczi?s very film-like approach indeed brings the viewer very close to his subjects, such as his series about workers in Kosovo?s coal-fuelled power station. It is interesting to see the differences between his photographs and Idrizi?s images on the same subject: the Roma slums of Kosovo Polje just outside Pristina.
In recent years, life in Kosovo was far from carefree happiness, yet several of Nimani?s works manage to mix in some humour and irony when presenting the dour conditions that exist there. A Kosovan Albanian woman lighting her cigarette in front of the statue of Mother Teresa, with her shawl and posture bizarrely similar to the saint?s creates a sharp contrast in one photo. In another image, an overly pumped-up body-builder poses in front of a dirty bathroom mirror during a local championship. The borderline between war, the independence process and everyday life is an unnoticeable blur on these images. Somehow they are all present at the same time, whether the subject is Valentine?s Day, a night-time television show or the manoeuvres of KFOR soldiers. The three young photographers give a fine yet ruthlessly precise report of life in Kosovo. The title Made in Kosovo reflects on the act of photographing and at the same time on the irrevocable pledge of pre-destination.
