Doors in Walls

The future is here, the resolve’s afoot, time to see what is before us, under microscope and light. It is not that we are lost, but building the unknown, towards a future of possibilities, necessity and hope. We know who we are, what we have done and can do, as we shift the present into a new frontier. 

“The sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.” Carl Jung

There are many new materials to replace the old and new ideals from which to think. Possibility is here, we can either be a part of it or move aside and let others own our destiny. Change is happening with or without us, as meaning and purpose rise. Carl Jung once wrote, “the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.”, this we have forgotten, as we dig our way forward, under the weight of who we think we are. 

We are the essence of beauty, and have the capacity for greatness. Though beauty has its ugly side, we have choices of which to use, to be the bridge and create the new or be the wall and run in fear. We are human, fallable, we have created wars, exterminated our own kind, but continue in our determination through will and hope. Our innate kindness and creative mind will be our savior, our need to do better and be better: of gods and worms, humility and desire.

“We have great minds, great physical strength and bravado of drive.”

The future will eventually be out of our hands as time has its limits, but the present is within. We have great minds, great physical strength and bravado of drive. This created the past, and will create the future. Through backbone, imagination and language we will build new roads and neural pathways of thinking: a new humanity, much different from our own. This is born of necessity, of survival of the fittest, what the future holds and the past has born.

It is time we see the future, to accept what is. To create and nourish beauty, inspire and inform: building bridges, and doors in walls.  

“I grew up in a country where you had an enemy in everyday life.” Meet the extraordinary Kosovo-born artist Petrit Halilaj. In this video, he talks about his past as a refugee, and how his spellbinding installation RU – inhabited by bird-like shapes made from Neolithic artefacts found in the small town he grew up in – explores myth, identity and our perception of reality. When he moved to Italy after having lived in an Albanian refugee camp, Halilaj realised that he no longer had an enemy. He started to become scared that he would no longer be able to love because he had been used to an existence, where things were so complicated that “finding your own space and being able to love was almost a luxury…” This made Halilaj decide that no matter the cost, he never wanted an enemy again. Bird-like creatures occupy the landscape of Halilaj’s installation RU, which takes its name after the small town Runik in Kosovo, in which Neolithic objects were found in the 1960s. Migratory birds, Halilaj explains, become a metaphor of our history, “of humans trying to move from a place to another, of people being manipulated… or finding a way out or people being isolated …or trying to move away…” Halilaj was fascinated by how you could compare the migration of birds to that of humans, and how to merge the two. Petrit Halilaj (b. 1986 in Kosovo) is an artist who often uses his own biography (Halilaj’s family fled the Kosovo War, and he grew up in a refugee camp) as a point of departure, adopting exhibition processes to alter the course of private and collective histories. Halilaj works with sculpture, drawing, text, and video, and often incorporates materials from his native Kosovo. Solo exhibitions include Kölnischer Kunstverein in Cologne, Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn, National Gallery of Kosovo and Fondation d’Enterprise Galeries Lafayette in Paris. His work has been presented at the 57th Venice Biennale in 2917, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, New Museum in New York, the 6th Berlin Biennale in 2010 and many more. In 2013, Halilaj represented the Republic of Kosovo in the country’s first national pavilion in the 55th Venice Biennale. He has been awarded a special mention by the Jury at the 57th Venice Biennale and is the winner of the Mario Merz Prize 2017. He lives in Berlin. Petrit Halilaj was interviewed by Roxanne Bagheshirin Lærkesen at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark in June 2019 in connection with the exhibition ‘Homeless Souls’. Camera: Klaus Elmer Produced and edited by: Roxanne Bagheshirin Lærkesen Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2019 Supported by Nordea-fonden