Urban provo[ac]tions in Tirana

Urban provo[ac]tions" aimed to affect the public consciousness on urban issues, attracting the attention of the citizens toward some of the problematic aspects of the contemporary city. The tool used to do so, as also noticeable from the title of the event, was a combination of provocation and activism.

In this particular moment of crisis when the youngest generations feel a sense of frustration derived from the impossibility to directly influence the city, the provocation becomes a mean, not only for conveying messages but most importantly, for generating feedback from the environment.

In particular there were organized five provo[ac]tions, each one focused on a particular problematic and all having in common the need to act in misused or disused spaces in the city.

The first provo[ac]tion intended to deal with the waterfront of the artificial lake of Tirana. The coastline is only partially part of the Tirana Big Park, neglecting so a big portion of land of immense potentials. The working group needed to show that activities can be organized even in the misused part of the lake coastline so they created a movie projection event followed by a debate and concluded by a party lasting until the late hours of the following morning. Since the main objective was to attract attention to this area, a 370 meters long, lit rope was used to physically connect the two sides of the lake and ideally bring together the park and the neglected space. The view of a crowd of people, watching movies and partying at the far end of a lightway floating on the lake was not an everyday scene for many visitors of the park that, provoked by this action, joined the event and temporally reactivated a new space in the city. Fig.1

The second provo[ac]tion needed to bring to light the missing standards of the sidewalks in Tirana. A very important issue considering that fact because of the not standardized sidewalk, big portions of the city are practically inaccessible, to a big number of categories. During one evening, the missing ramps, the dangerous objects and the narrow passages where brought to light in "Komuna e Parisit" street by painting on the ground a number of signs and icons pointing at the problems. The next day the participants to the provo[ac]tion conduced a sensitization campaign in the same neighbourhood, discussing and interacting with the inhabitants. Fig.2

The third provo[ac]tion turned an abandoned space, inside a housing block, into a “gamescape”, an artificial landscape, dedicated to the playing moment as an important event in the contemporary city. In this case a participatory project was initialized where through the contribute of the children of the block, a very chip playground was created. Fig.3

The forth provo[ac]tion used an artistic performance as the mean to transmit messages concerning the pollution created by the chewing gum. Fig.4

The fifth provo[ac]tion investigated the possibly of creating a space through the input of new activities. A tunnel, going through a housing block, was painted with a particular paint, able to glow in the dark. The tunnel so, after dark, turned from a transitory space to a stationary place where the presence of the music and some drinks managed to gather a big number of people that only needed a good pretext to gather in a public space and share some time with other people. Fig.5

The five main provo[ac]tions where accompanied by a number of smaller interventions in the city, always aiming to bring back the attention of the inhabitants to the urban issues of the everyday life.