Community event
Breaking Archival Silences — Vienna
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.
Breaking archival silences: compiling the diaspora digital archive
Archives play a central role in shaping how histories are written and remembered, yet they are far from neutral repositories of truth. Every archive is a curated collection, structured by the political, cultural, and institutional values of those who create and maintain it. This selectivity inevitably produces archival silences, intentional or unintentional omissions that distort historical understanding and obscure marginalised voices. Migrant groups, often represented as ahistorical beings, are particularly affected by such silences. Their movements and memories are frequently detached from the wider histories of empire, displacement, and global inequality that shaped them. When archives omit these contexts, migrants appear as people without pasts, sudden arrivals rather than actors within ongoing historical processes.
In the past decade, how we have come to speak of our own archives in the Kosovar-Albanian diaspora has been limited to snippets and images from the war, shared on social media without political or historical context. Our stories are too often told only through the prism of conflict, and it is through this narrow lens that we are seen and represented. In the first of this series of events, we aim to explore 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.
Interrogating what is missing from the archive therefore becomes a political act: it challenges whose experiences are considered worthy of preservation and whose are erased. By exposing and addressing archival silences, scholars and communities can recover suppressed histories, reframe migration as a product of intertwined global trajectories, and return historical agency to those long silenced by the very structures that claim to record them.
Programme
Welcome & introduction — Rina Limoni & Alberta Sinani
Keynote: Penesta Dika — "Digital Art & Archival Work"
Panel discussion: Diaspora and cultures of memory across disciplines
Musical accompaniment — Puhiza Shemsidini
Archive suitcase & recording corner — Diasporas Speaking
Reading corner — bibliobox
Speakers
Penesta Dika
Lecturer & researcher in media art and digital archives
Dr. phil. Dika is a lecturer at the University of Art and Design Linz, the FH St. Pölten, and UBT in Prishtina, where she researches media art, digital cultures, and digital archives.
She studied and completed her doctorate in Vienna and Linz, and has published numerous contributions on the history of digital art. As a curator, she has realised international exhibitions including ANTopolis at MQ Vienna and the Ars Electronica, among others.
Mona Rizaj
Artist, Vienna
Mona Rizaj, MFA, born in Vienna, studied Fine Art with a focus on time-based media in Hamburg. She lives and works in Vienna.
In her artistic practice she engages with the Kosovar-Albanian diaspora, most recently through her documentary film mut me lule, which explores her own family history. At the heart of her work is listening and understanding as practice — across language barriers.
Albana Deralla
Sustainability consultant, construction industry
Dr. Techn. DI Albana Deralla is a sustainability consultant in the construction industry. She completed her degree in Architecture in Prishtina and her doctorate in Vienna, where her research examined the thermal performance of kullas in Kosovo as sustainable building practices.
She finds great fulfilment in contributing to her field, particularly in the areas of construction practice and social sustainability.
Curators
Rina Limoni
Researcher and Founder of Diasporas Speaking and Breaking Archival Silences
Rina Limoni was born in Gjilan, Kosovo, and raised in Augsburg, Germany. In August 2024, she launched Diasporas Speaking, a podcast that has since grown into an archive of Balkan diaspora histories.
She holds a BA in International Relations and Politics and two Master's degrees: one in European Studies and another in Geopolitics, Territory, and Security, both obtained at King's College London.
Rina previously worked as a postgraduate researcher at King's College London, focusing on activism and diaspora at the intersection of nation-building and geopolitics. She also served as a graduate teaching assistant, co-teaching a module on international development and emerging economies.
When she is not interviewing diaspora members, curating this website, or researching migration, she heads the data and insights section at a media company — and has been calling London her home for over 15 years.
Alberta Sinani
Kosovo-born artist and community psychologist, Vienna
Alberta Sinani is a Kosovo-born artist and community psychologist based in Austria. Her work explores themes of migration, intergenerational resilience, and liberation practices within communities. As a Fulbright Student in the U.S., she focused on immigrant youth mental health and civic engagement — work that inherently demands a generational healing approach.
With a background in political science and social design, Alberta bridges academia, activism, and art to amplify marginalized voices. She has contributed to audio projects centering the Albanian diaspora, facilitated migrant-led initiatives in Vienna, and worked with BIPOC youth empowerment and leadership organizations in New Haven, Connecticut.
Through her interdisciplinary practice, she continues to create transformative spaces for collective healing and agency, grounded in historical resilience and built on cross-communal solidarity.
Photos from the event
