Events

Co-curated by Rina Limoni & Alberta Sinani

Archives shape how histories are written and remembered — but they are far from neutral. Every archive is structured by the political and cultural values of those who create it, producing silences that obscure marginalised voices. Migrant groups are particularly affected: their movements and memories are frequently detached from the wider histories of empire and displacement that shaped them.

In the Kosovar-Albanian diaspora, our stories have too often been told only through the prism of conflict. In this first event of the series, we explored how history is told on social media, and why it matters that we dig through our own personal archives to tell histories beyond the war.

Hosted by Rina Limoni and Alberta Sinani — community worker and artist.

Silenced Mothers / Silenced Women — Bringing the silences of the archive into voice.

The experiences of women who migrated from Kosovo to the West during the 1990s or earlier remain largely unaddressed or marginalised in current Kosovar-Albanian migration narratives. With this in mind, we will begin periodic conversations with the generation of women who moved to the diaspora with their families or claimed asylum on their own.

By Alberta Sinani & Rina Limoni

The London edition centres on the question: What do we know about the UK diaspora beyond the idea of living in an empire metropole? The event explores the politics and poetics of archives in shaping diasporic memory and identity.

Programme:

Intro presentation — Rina Limoni

Panel discussion — Alberta Sinani, Arbnora Selmani, Kaltrina Pashtriku

Workshop — Dig into your own archive

Networking with byrek and drinks