Ahead with the Past

When Albania’s communist regime disingrated in 1991-1992 Albanians were told they had embarked on a transition. They imagined transition as a kind of road, if a long one, starting in one place and ending somewhere else, or as a ship ploughing through the ocean of backwardness towards a haven of prosperity and the rule of law. In the bedraggled state, Albanians were leaving behind socialist Albania for capitalist Albania, for a European Albania. Transition would be a metamorphosis, changing the country’s appearance and its whole essence.

My aim in this project was to capture people in their everyday lifes and struggles after the fall of the Iron Curtain. The scenes bear the marks either of the socialist past or of Albania’s ageold poverty; some even illustrate unsuccesful endeavours to overcome both.

The characters may be bound to the past, but they have their own deep inner wolrd which the photographs try to bring to the surface.