TIRANA, April 16 /ATA/ – The interactive and audio-visual exhibition “The Present Past” is set to become a permanent memorial for all political prisoners, who suffered and survived in the infamous communist labor camp and prison in Spaç, featuring 49 sculpture portraits of surviving former politically-persecuted prisoners.
In a post on the social media, the Minister of Economy, Culture and Innovation, Blendi Gonxhja, said that everyone can now see for themselves incorporation of 49 portraits into one single sculpture, which will become a memorial of the collective memory, a meeting and a starting point of a social development process.
“We would like to congratulate two young talented individuals, Kristian Zara (the sculptor and curator of the exhibition) and the curator Arnen Sula, who brought back the harrowing stories of the former Spaç inmates through art,” Gonxhja said.
The project was designed and pulled off at “the Bunker” and was supported by the EU-funded EU4Culture programme, implemented by UNOPS Albania in close partnership with the Ministry of Economy, Culture and Innovation of Albania.
The permanent exhibition reminds through faces and voices, the sufferings of the past joining three themes: remembering, experiencing, and reflecting.
Spaç was one of the most infamous jails in communist Albania. Located in a remote mountainous area in the north of the country, inmates were forced to work in copper and pyrite mines in very harsh conditions.
The Ministry of Economy, Culture and Innovation has announced plans to rehabilitate the site to prevent its further degradation and transform it into a memorial and cultural monument for preservation.
Plans are also being considered to build a museum adjacent to the former prison buildings to showcase the inherited artifacts to remember and not to forget the past.
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