Trailer, Video, 04’13”
“How deep can a Dragonfly swim under the Ocean?”, the second chapter of the trilogy The Animals. Once Upon a time… in the present time. tells the story of a dragonfly that, despite being able to move its wings, is condemned to never fly, thus failing to get away from the ocean. The dragonfly, a symbol of spiritual depth, power, change of perspective, and adaptation recalls the real experience of Rilond Risto, who spent 21 years of isolation in Albanian prisons, creating mechanical insects capable of flying from various circumstantial tools during his last period of imprisonment. The dragonfly moves inside the Pyramid of Tirana, a memorial monument to the Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha built in the late 1980s. Since the 90s this building has experienced different moments of transformation while having different functions. It is currently being repurposed to become a new hub for Tirana
Among the architecture of the brutalist monument, the dragonfly feeds on the fossil of an octopus in order to survive, but at the same time, it is held by it without the possibility to fly and get away from the Pyramid. The artist uses this image as a metaphor for the perennial man’s attempt to detach himself from a context imposed by society.
11’23” 4K film, 2021, Courtesy the Artist
This is the II Chapter of the trilogy: The Animals. Once Upon a Time … in a present Time. (2019 – 2022)