#161: Alban Muja

Friday, 12 June 2026, 24:00 | midnight—   add to calendar
BABYLON, big cinema hall, Rosa-Luxemburg-Str. 30, Berlin
admission free and open to the public

Alban Muja’s artistic practice operates at the intersection of personal memory, collective history, and the politics of representation, foregrounding the fragile relationship between image-making and lived experience. Working across video, film, installation, as well as painting and works on paper, Muja engages with the socio-political realities of Kosovo and the broader Balkan region, often drawing from autobiographical narratives to interrogate how histories are constructed, mediated, and remembered.

A defining characteristic of Muja’s work is his sustained interest in storytelling as both a methodological and conceptual tool. Rather than presenting history as fixed or authoritative, he approaches it as fragmented and contested, shaped by subjective recollections and mediated images. His projects frequently revisit moments of conflict, displacement, and transition, situating individual experiences within larger geopolitical frameworks while offering perspectives that challenge dominant narratives.

Muja’s often use archival material, ranging from familial photographs to media imagery, complicates the boundary between fact and fiction. By recontextualizing such materials across different mediums, including painterly and graphic translations, he exposes the mechanisms through which images acquire meaning and authority. His works often blur documentary and staged representation, prompting reflection on the reliability of visual evidence and the role of authorship in shaping historical understanding.

At the core of Muja’s practice is an exploration of identity as fluid and contingent, particularly in relation to migration, exile, and belonging. While grounded in the legacy of war and displacement, his work also emphasizes the persistence of cultural memory and the potential of art as a space for reflection and reconstruction.

Alban Muja, who is present shows:

Free Your Mind, 2004, 9:45 min
One of the first projects Muja realized was a video titled Free Your Mind. Marina Abramović’s work served as his starting point, providing the idea for his own piece. However, Muja was not particularly satisfied with the initial form of his concept; consequently, I strove persistently to find a way to distinguish his work from Abramović’s. What is an artist to do to pay homage to the source of his inspiration—the work of a renowned colleague who has already made a name for herself—while simultaneously distancing himself from that very work and name in order to find his own voice? How does one break free—not from the influence itself, but from the torment of searching for oneself within the work of another artist? —by loudly repeating that famous name until it loses all meaning. A form of catharsis.

Blue Wall Red Door, 2009, 33:00 min
The film Blue Wall Red Door explores how people in Prishtina navigate their surroundings. Street names are definitely not the means by which the city’s residents find their way; they have been changed far too frequently over the past decade. This becomes particularly evident when the filmmakers ask a taxi company to drive them to a specific street or location: even when providing the exact address—consisting of both street name and house number—further explanations are invariably required. One must, for instance, explain which other prominent building is located nearby, or which well-known figure resides there (usually a prominent or public personality). Fundamentally, this is how things work in all social gatherings and public interactions. One is always compelled to reference another building or a specific individual to describe a meeting point—never, however, the street name or the house number.

Legendary Dog , 2014, 14:00 min
“The Legendary Dog” recounts a chapter in the lives of Ulay and Marina Abramović—the renowned conceptual and performance art duo of their time. Specifically, the film centers on a journey the pair undertook to Kosovo in 1977. This journey culminated in a performance staged within the hermetically sealed border zone between the former Yugoslavia (Kosovo) and the socialist dictatorship of Albania—a region where cross-border movement between the two states was impossible, particularly for the ethnic Albanians living in both countries. Yet the performance, titled “Quakovich Explores Albania,” was not the only outcome. Ulay and Abramović also gained a new family member: Alba, a Sharri dog (also known as an Illyrian Shepherd), which was considered a national cultural treasure of Kosovo at the time. He spent fourteen years by the side of the famous conceptual art couple—including five years in their legendary van, which has since evolved into a work of art in its own right. Ulay, Marina Abramović, and Alba lived together in harmony; eventually, however, life led them in different directions.

I Believe the Portrait Saved Me, 2025, 10:00 min
Twenty-five years after his abduction during the Kosovo War, painter Skender Muja recalls a pivotal moment of survival. During the war’s final months, Muja and many Albanian citizens from Mitrovica were captured while attempting to flee Kosovo. Held in a school repurposed as a detention camp, they faced confinement, fear, and an uncertain fate. One day, the Serbian police commander presented Muja with a chilling ultimatum: to draw his portrait on a blackboard. “If it’s good, you’ll be spared. If not, I can’t guarantee anything,” he warned. Under immense pressure, Muja began sketching, aware that his life depended on his skill. The film alternates between two perspectives: Muja creating the portrait and the anxious faces of his fellow detainees. When the commander approves the drawing, Muja believes it saved his life. Narrated by Muja, I Believe the Portrait Saved Me explores resilience and the profound impact of art in even the most oppressive circumstances.

Alban Muja (b. 1980, Mitrovica) is a Kosovan contemporary artist and filmmaker based in Berlin and Prishtina. In 2019, Muja represented the Republic of Kosovo at the 58th Venice Biennale with the three-channel video installation Family Album.

His work has been presented in numerous exhibitions and institutions, including: Sharjah Biennial 17; the 75th Berlinale (Forum Expanded); Art Encounters Biennial, Timișoara; Sarajevo Film Festival; the 47th Cinmed – Montpellier International Mediterranean Film Festival; the 22nd Reykjavík International Film Festival; Manifesta 14, Prishtina; Ludwig Museum, Budapest; Museum of Contemporary Art Arlington, VA; MAXXI – National Museum of 21st Century Arts, Rome; 3rd Industrial Art Biennial, Istria; MOMus – Experimental Center for the Arts, Thessaloniki; Kumu Art Museum, Tallinn; Guangdong Museum of Art; Museum of Contemporary Art Skopje; MeetFactory, Prague; Forum Stadtpark, Graz; James Gallery, New York; City Art Gallery, Ljubljana; Zhejiang Art Museum, Hangzhou; Museum of Fine Arts, Split; Trieste Contemporanea; Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art, Riga; The Delaware Contemporary, Wilmington; Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Rijeka; Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw; 2nd Biennial of Contemporary Art in the Atomic Shelter, Konjic; ŠKUC Gallery, Ljubljana; National Gallery of Kosovo; Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills; Slovak National Gallery; Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden; the 28th Ljubljana Graphic Biennale; nGbK, Berlin; National Gallery of Arts, Tirana; and the Cetinje Biennale, among others.

His latest film, I Believe the Portrait Saved Me, premiered at the Berlinale and has since been screened at major film festivals across Europe and beyond. The film received awards at Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg and the Sarajevo Film Festival, and was nominated for the European Film Award.