Albania
Tirana Art Lab – Center for Contemporary Art is one of Albania’s leading contemporary independent art institution. Founded as a non-profit organization, on the initiative of Adela Demetja in 2010, TAL aims at promoting emerging artists and contemporary art from Albania as well as from Central, Eastern, and South Eastern Europe. The center is process and research oriented. Through different events like, residencies, exhibitions, workshops, performances, lectures and talks, as well as publications, TAL has managed to create a space for emergent critical and reflecive thoughts. The center initiates and supports new productions by national and international artists, and projects critically engaged with artistic, cultural and social issues of transitional and contemporary societies. From 2014-2018 TAL operated from an independent multifunctional space located in the centre of Tirana. Since 2018 TAL has been putting an emphasis on projects rooted in research and archiving, in relation to art in publics space (Tirana Floating Archive & Tirana Floating Tours) and highlighting the practices of women artists (Secondary Archive). In 2023 TAL initiated “Curating with Care” the first alternative educational program in curating in collaboration with Istituto Italiano di Cultura a Tirana. At the moment TAL does not have a physical location but collaborates with local partners for its projects.
From 2014 TAL has refined its holistic conceptual, operational and managerial practice based on the concept of rhizome. The concept consists in three practical strings: inside-outside, bottom-up and polyphony. It is deeply rooted, both in the Albanian cultural context and new experimental methodologies in terms of research, production and management. In this manner TAL tries to resist politicization, polarization and neo-colonial practices which pervade contemporary local and/or global cultural scene.
Throughout the years, TAL has grown into a contemporary art centre, engaged in a wide range of activities and collaborations with other art institutions, museums, and academic structures in Albania, the South Eastern Europe Region and the international landscape.