Daniela Kociraj

Women Transforming the Balkans is a regional initiative organized by the Women’s Museum / MiG in Tirana, in partnership with the Women’s Museums in Podgorica and Novi Sad. The project brought together women activists, artists, and creators on 13–14 October 2024 to engage in dialogue and confront the ongoing challenges faced by the feminist movement across the Balkans. My role in the project was curating an exhibition at the Toptani Castle that explored the evolution of feminism through art. The exhibition featured a diverse range of works depicting women’s experiences in Albania, juxtaposed with contemporary depictions of women today, highlighting both continuities and contrasts. I utilized the space to present a variety of mediums, including photography, installations, interactive games, and participatory projects. The exhibition also incorporated an open discussion area, inviting visitors to reflect, engage, and actively participate in conversations about gender, identity, and the role of women in society. Through this multifaceted approach, the exhibition aimed to create a dynamic dialogue between historical narratives and contemporary feminist perspectives, making the challenges, achievements, and ongoing struggles of women visible and tangible. Below you can find attached my full dedicated post to this event: https://www.instagram.com/p/DBFHqSLIFOJ/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA== artcurator artdirection installation photography editing conceptualart openspeech feministdiscussion eventorganisation personalexhibition

• Artist

In this project, three deeply personal poems are transformed into immersive experiences through Braille cut-outs on paper, where language is no longer intended to be read with the eyes or touched by fingers, but to interact with light and shadow. Long, suspended sheets feature words as voids - absences that take shape only when illuminated - creating a dialogue between presence and absence. Light passing through the Braille dots casts delicate impressions on surrounding walls, evoking the intangible traces of memory, emotion, and experience. The installation explores the materialization of what is emotionally invisible: a love that suffocates, a self dissolving under tension, and a relationship marked by what is unspoken or missing. By turning language into form and shadow, the work invites viewers to sense absence as a presence, to encounter the echoes of emotion that leave a mark without being explicitly expressed. This project reflects my ongoing exploration of the interplay between text, visual space, and the emotional resonance of light and transparency. artist diplomaproject poetry installation design spaceconceptualization galleryorganization conceptualartist artstudy

• Concept Artist

Created as part of the Workshop and Exhibition: "The End and the Beginning, Objects, Processes and Trajectories". (May 15th - 24th 2024) Organised by the artist Stefano Romano through the "Mobile School of Visual Arts" and part of the "Deviation" program that the Platform "Culture Hub Croatia" implemented during 2024. Split has many identifiable elements and aspects of community that represent it and unite the city. Undeniably, the local football team “HNK Hajduk Split” is one of the pillars of this connection; being worshiped and adored as if it was a religion. The broken glass, a “Hajduk” logo, bricks abandoned near homes, all of these make up the spaces and entity of the city. There is a deep sense of belonging, the freedom of being expressive. But how can you speak, let alone create using something that is but a stranger to you? Maybe I can’t bring Split and Croatia to myself, but I can bring pieces of myself, and leave them here to continue their own legacy. Maybe one day they’ll have stronger roots than ever anticipated. Poetry on glass, glass on bricks, streets roamed but never learned, them, you, me. All of it fits as a puzzle piece, dying to be complete. Full details on the project: https://www.twine.net/signin art artisticconcept installation streetart workshop installationartist creativeprocess conceptualartist exhibition photography poetry

• Concept Artist