Albanisches Überleben / Albanian Survival

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Hardly any other country in Europe has been so misunderstood and mystified as a romantic and exotic land as Albania. For more than four decades, the communist dictatorship ruled in isolation from the rest of the world, which responded to it with forgetfulness.

The German photographer Jutta Benzenberg, together with Ardian Klosi, has traveled to the poorest country in Europe several times during a time of upheaval and change. Her black and white photos from the years 1991 and 1992 capture the intensity of encountering an almost unknown country.

Poor farmers and mountain dwellers who still live as if in the Middle Ages, former political prisoners or exiles who tell the world the saddest chapter in the history of this country. Children on peculiar playgrounds with adult-like eyes, women whose age is no longer recognizable due to multiple oppressions, landscapes showing signs of decay.

Jutta Benzenberg's photographs put the Albanian people at the forefront, portraying suffering individuals who still manage to laugh and convey the Albanian people's most important quality: the determination to survive by any means.

FOTOHOF Salzburg