One of the legends of Albanian photography, Angjelin Nenshati, will be showcased at the Marubi National Museum of Photography in a retrospective exhibition that traces the late artist’s decades-long career, most of which under communist oppression and socialist realism.
A self-taught photographer, Nenshati was the type of author who followed the most important events of the city of Shkodra, northern Albania, the various democratic movements of the ’90s, moments of important turn of events, the resumption of religious celebrations and the reopening of churches and mosques.
In 1993, Nenshati photographed the visits of Pope John Paul II and Mother Teresa of Calcutta to Albania.
In an interview with U.S photographer Stan Sherer who pictured Albania’s transformation in the early 1990s as communism was collapsing, Nenshati described working as a photographer under communism as the most difficult part of his life because of lack of freedom.
“I have always made photos. But I have never been free. We were always told what to do. We had to work with the pickaxe in order to build socialism, and to fight with the rifle to protect our country from the capitalists and revisionists surrounding us. We couldn’t create anything. We were exploited, as if we were merely tools,” Nenshati is quoted as saying in Sherer’s book.
The exhibition opens on Friday, June 22 at the Marubi museum in Shkodra, northern Albania.
