Life in Limbo
Curated by Adela Demetja
Space52, Larnakos 28, 10446, Athens, Greece
Opening 1st April 2023, 7 pm
Duration: April 1 – April 29, 2023
Poster design: Katerina Milesi
Exhibition & Public Program
Ilir Tsouko is a visual storyteller who primarily works in the genre of documentary photography. His long-term projects and series often revolve around migration, social and political issues. One of Tsouko's recent projects is "Life in Limbo" which features a selection of photographs taken from a larger series created between 2021 and 2022 in a beach resort in Albania.
In August 2021 Albania agreed to take Afghan refugees, 1870 of them where hosted at the beach resort. Most of them former government officials and employees of American institutions were evacuated expecting to resettle in the U.S. and ended up in a country they had never heard of.
While most of the refugees have left for the U.S. and Canada, over 700 of them are still waiting in the hotel and may have to stay in Albania.
Photographs from Albania are contrasted by unedited video footage taken by Ilir and his translator Hameed Farhadi during his visit in Afghanistan in 2021 after the return of Taliban’s into power.
Some of the photographs from “Life in Limbo” has been published in the Washington Post and ZEITmagazin.
The exhibition is supported by Heinrich Böll Stiftung Greece – Thessaloniki, Albanian Center of Photography and Space52.
