In Albania, a dictator’s home provides inspiration for the arts

TIRANA – In the heart of the capital, the villa of Albania’s former dictator welcomes young artists from around the world in the country’s latest step from its hermetic past to a rapidly evolving future.

“What a slap in the face to history it is to promote this freedom of creation in this former seat of power, where censorship and prohibitions were decided,” said Mr Bruno Julliard, director of the Art Explora foundation.

The foundation played a vital role in helping transform the home of former communist leader Enver Hoxha into a chic new residency.

With the first arrivals having settled into the space in January, the 2025 residency will welcome 22 artists from around 15 countries.

Among them is Genny Petrotta, a young researcher and video artist from Italy, who said the space has already inspired both introspection and creativity.

“Every day when I wake up, I write down my dreams because here, I have absurd dreams,” she said. “In a way, they act like a dramatic emotional theatre and affect my writing.

“It’s important to be here because it adds something unexpected to my work.”

The residence – formerly known as Villa 31 – was where the Hoxha family lived for decades until the fall of the hardline communist regime in 1991, just years after Hoxha’s death.

The multi-storey home formerly sat in one of the most secretive areas in the capital Tirana, guarded day and night by a network of secret agents and police officers.

From there, Hoxha oversaw a vast security apparatus that outlawed religion and most forms of commerce. It also cracked down on personal expression – which included the imprisonment of artists – even as he binged on outlawed works of literature in his home.

Today, bars and cafes dominate the area.

The villa is the latest in a series of structures to have undergone dramatic makeovers in recent years. Another is a pyramid in downtown Tirana once dedicated to Hoxha. Now, it is set to be a hub for the country’s burgeoning tech sector.

Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, speaking at the opening ceremony for the new artists’ residency in January, underlined the symbolic value of the villa’s transformation.

“This space will be used to create everything that Enver Hoxha despised,” he said. “Enough to make him turn in his grave from shame.”

“This is what this ghost villa will be today: a house of modernist degeneration,” he added, a nod to the language used by the dictatorship to discredit artists.

Stanislava Pinchuk – a Ukrainian multidisciplinary artist living in Sarajevo – is among the first group of creatives to take up residency.

Known for her drawings, installations and sculptures, she said she wants to study how space retains memory and bears witness to political events that violate human rights.

“This house is incredibly heavy. Everything here breathes pain and tension,” she added.

Art Explora’s director Blanche de Lestrange said: “By welcoming artists from different countries working with various mediums, this new cultural space will foster international and interdisciplinary arts in the heart of the Balkans.”

Inside the villa, the visiting artists have been able to catch a glimpse of Hoxha’s paranoid world view.

Hidden behind a private cinema, the basement doors of the villa open into a sprawling network of tunnels and bomb shelters, spanning several kilometres.

Abandoned and closed for years, many of the tunnels have been weathered by decades of neglect and humidity.

For Gerta Xhaferaj – an Albanian architect and visual artist based in Switzerland – the tunnels present a potential space for creative expression.

“What are they hiding? Not only literally, but also symbolically, what do they represent?” she said. “I want to uncover this underground world and turn that mystery into art.” AFP