The second chapter of the public art project Radis – the four-year public art project by Fondazione CRT and Fondazione CRC curated by Marta Papini, hosted in the province of Cuneo in Italy – connects geographies, people, and memories, drawing from Abetare, the visual archive of Kosovar artist Petrit Halilaj.
In times like the one we are living through, many of us have inevitably found ourselves questioning the meaning of our work, our actions, and even the quiet persistence of life itself as it carries on. Art, in particular, should aspire to beauty, allowing others to discover it and to experience it in everyday life. And yet, art can – and must – do more. This is a conviction increasingly rooted in the field and among its practitioners. Ars gratia artis – art for art’s sake – is not only an obsolete notion, confined to that self-referential 19th-century artistic and especially literary movement known as Aestheticism. In recent years, it has given way to its antithesis: the idea that there is no such thing as art that is not political.
PETRIT HALILAJ FEATURED IN THE SECOND CHAPTER OF RADIS
On the occasion of the second chapter of Radis – the four-year public art project by Fondazione CRT and Fondazione CRC curated by Marta Papini, hosted in the Langhe region, in the province of Cuneo in Italy – Kosovar artist Petrit Halilaj (b. 1986) conveys a message of peace and hope that feels profoundly relevant today, one that speaks to the present and – one hopes – to the future. He does so through the most powerful language, one that seems furthest from the vocabulary we usually associate with politics, but capable of fostering reflection and awareness in the most honest way: the language of childhood.
A VISUAL VOCABULARY BORN FROM CHILDREN’S CREATIVITY
The installation conceived by Petrit Halilaj for the village of Dogliani, marks a milestone in the artist’s decade-long Abetare project. Abetare (A Day at School) is the first permanent work in the series and a concrete example of how art can activate communities while safeguarding memories and experiences. The idea of Abetare dates back to 2010, when Halilaj returned to the village of Runik in Kosovo, from which he had been forced to flee during the Balkan War. There, he discovered that his former school was slated for demolition. Outside, a pile of desks awaiting disposal caught his attention: on their surfaces, countless drawings, carvings, and doodles accumulated over the years provided tangible traces of the passage of dozens – perhaps hundreds – of children. Since then, he has pursued the idea of creating a visual archive made up of signs and creative impulses – an ever-expanding project that has gradually reached new territories. From time to time, the artist selects certain subjects and doodles, transforming them into three-dimensional form as metal sculptures.
PETRIT HALILAJ CONNECTS KOSOVO AND ITALY THROUGH CHILDREN’S DRAWINGS IN VALDIBÀ
For the hamlet of Valdibà – once home to a small school active until the 1960s – Halilaj has created a work that symbolically connects Runik and Dogliani through the drawings of Kosovar and Italian schoolchildren. The installation, simple yet striking, consists of an interlacing of bent and twisted steel tubes that faithfully reproduce the outline of a house discovered on a school desk in Dogliani. This dwelling comes to life through playful, curious presences: a cat, a sun, a little duck, and a cartoon character. These simple lines serve to reconnect geographies, distant places, and even peoples once wounded and divided by war. “In Kosovo, from an early age, we grew up fearing our neighbors”, Halilaj recalls. “But when I later traveled to Serbia, after the war, and visited their schools, I discovered that the children’s drawings – their symbols – were the same. I realized that a house is always a house, a heart is always a heart, and so are the sun and the animals. Children are all different, yet they are the same all over the world”. A thought both contemporary and as old as time itself – one that today takes on deeper resonance and meaning in light of the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia, and the humanitarian tragedy unfolding in Palestine. At the heart of this public art project are people – their memories and experiences. “This work remains incomplete without the presence and engagement of the public, who can transform it into a playground or simply a place for gathering and connection”, explain the curator and the artist.
PETRIT HALILAJ: HIS LIFE AND HIS CONNECTION TO ITALY
Halilaj’s life is itself a crossroads of places, cultures, and people. A gifted draughtsman since childhood, he experienced the trauma of war and life as a refugee in Albania. It was during that dark period that he met Giacomo Poli, an Italian psychologist who had traveled to Albania as a volunteer to provide psychological support to war victims. “He did something very simple: he gave us paper and markers to draw with”, Halilaj recalls. “It was so important to have someone willing to listen to our traumas – but above all, to our dreams. When I turned eighteen, he invited me to his home near Mantua so I could study at the Brera Academy. And so now, I have two families: one natural and one adoptive”.
After graduating, he received the Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship in 2018 and took part in academic programs in several countries. He is currently a professor at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and was recently awarded the prestigious Nasher Prize, often described as the equivalent of the Oscars in the world of sculpture. With Abetare (A Day at School), Halilaj not only celebrates his connection with Italy but also marks a new chapter in his research, bringing part of his archive of undated artworks created by unsuspecting young artists into the public space. In doing so, he creates a parallel with the site chosen by Papini, itself a custodian of memories and fragments of local life.
ARTWORKS ON VIEW IN DOGLIANI
The installation is accompanied by the group exhibition Tutto ciò che tocchi cambia. Tutto ciò che cambi, ti cambia (Everything you touch, you change. Everything you change, changes you), curated by Marta Papini, featuring works from the collections of the two Turin-based foundations that initiated the project. A few carefully selected works come together to form a cohesive and refined narrative about care and healing – closely connected to Halilaj’s installation and his personal experience: the ability to change and to embrace the past, even when it is marked by trauma. The title draws inspiration from Octavia E. Butler’s 1993 novel Parable of the Sower, which envisions a dystopian future – set between 2024 and 2027 – in a world torn apart by inequality. A glimmer of hope emerges through the protagonist, Lauren Olamina, who founds the first nucleus of a new humanity, built upon a new religion that embraces change as a process of healing. Among the artists featured in the exhibition, Nolan Oswald Dennis is the only one who worked directly with the novel that served as inspiration for the series Notes for Recovery (hold) (2020), in which diagrams remind us of how complex and fluctuating the path toward overcoming trauma can be.
TRANSFORMATION, CARE, AND HEALING THROUGH ART
All the works on view speak of experiences, lives, and bodies engaged in transformative and changing processes. Pain and vulnerability lie at the core of Bracha L. Ettinger’s Eros – Pietà n.1 (2015–19). In The Communicator (2012), Marina Abramović casts her own head, embedding it with minerals and stones believed to possess healing powers. Sol Calero, in turn, reinterprets an ancient Venezuelan legend through the distinctive aesthetic of ex-votos, small votive offerings pilgrims use to ask for miracles, in two works from her Milagritos series – Mano (2018) and Corazón (2018). Chiara Camoni and Dorothy Iannone, meanwhile, reflect in Serpentessa (2022) and Hammage aux femmes et aux hommes (1983) on the condition of women, their emancipation, and their capacity for transformation – both individually and collectively. The exhibition, on view until December 2, is hosted in the former Chiesetta del Ritiro della Sacra Famiglia, built in 1883 – a place that has historically served as a space of care and support for the local community. It offers yet another parallel with the site chosen for Abetare (A Day at School), reminding us of the importance of caring for others, for the places we inhabit, and for ourselves – the point from which every journey begins.
LINK
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