Concrete mushroom transformed into memorial to victims of communism

TIRANA, March 11 – A concrete mushroom – symbol of Albania’s 45-year paranoid isolation, some items from the notorious Spac prison of the former politically persecuted, and some pieces of the Berlin Wall – whose collapse marked the end of communism in Eastern Europe will make up an installation dedicated to Albania’s almost five decades of isolation under communism. The installation named “Post Bllok” is an initiative of writer and analyst Fatos Lubonja who spent 17 years in the Spac labour camp as a political prisoner and artist Ardian Isufi. Placed just at the entry of the former Bllok area, home to the country’s former communist elite and just in front of the central boulevard and the former central committee, the memorial will feature Albania’s suppression of freedoms and rights, prison and torture under late dictator Enver Hoxha.
While the bunker has been at the construction site since decades, the concrete poles were taken from the Spac prison in the northern Mat district and the pieces of the Berlin wall are a present to the Municipality of Tirana, making one of the few memorials dedicated to communism in Albania.
“This is testimony to our need for remembrance, to tell what happened during communism and that’s why these meaningful artifacts have been selected. These are some of the items which personify the regime and our duty is to remember because we have to know where we are coming from in order to know where we are heading to,” says publicist Fatos Lubonja.
Curator Ardian Isufi says that separating art from history is very difficult in these cases and that their goal was to mix them. “When coming here, people will feel they are part of everything because we invite them to be protagonists in this trip in space. They will find the roots and origin of these items, the same as the roots historical events,” says Isufi.
Known all over the world, the Berlin Wall is full of stories which reminds us of the separation of the communist world, the Cold War, isolation as a means of rule, lack of communication, attempts to cross it over in search of freedom, killings and its collapse, the authors say.
The bunker is a typical Albanian symbol showcasing Albania’s isolation, paranoia during dictatorship, the people’s stamina to build them all over Albania as fragments of a giant absurd pyramid. The pieces of the Berlin Wall were donated by the Municipality of Berlin.
The third item includes several concrete poles taken from a mine gallery in Spac were political prisoners were brutally exploited. Visitors can enter the bunker and walk through the poles taken from Spac, taking their imagination back to evoke dictatorship, lack of freedom, suffering, isolation, persecution. Some 700,000 bunkers were built during Albania’s communist regime from paranoid Stalinist dictator Enver Hoxha to protect Albania from imaginary foreign assault. The memorial, an archeological metaphor to suffering and pain during dictatorship, is expected to conclude by the end of March.