A new exhibition in Ferizaj showcases the work of prominent Kosovo-based photojournalist Hazir Reka, whose images serve to raise awareness among foreign audiences about the suffering of Kosovo Albanians under Slodoban Milosevic’s regime.
Kosovo war photojournalist Hazir Reka symbolically rang a school bell on November 28 to announce the opening of his newest photography exhibition at ‘Çesk Zadeja’ art school in Ferizaj. The exhibition showcases Kosovo’s journey to independence from 1988 to 2008. One of Reka’s main motifs in this exhibition is Albania’s distinct red and black flag, with much of his work showing the unique and emblematic ways the flag was used during the independence movement.
The title of the exhibition is ‘Flatrat e Ngrira (The Frozen Wings),’ an allegory to the red background and the black double-headed eagle of the Albanian national flag.
The exhibition comprises twenty photographs that line the corridors of the first Albanian language school in Ferizaj, a southeastern town about 40 km from the capital Prishtina.
One set of photographs shows ethnic Albanian victims of the Kosovo war in 1998-99 wrapped in the Albanian national flag, while others show American peacekeepers in the early days of Kosovo’s independence in 2008.
“The national flag is everywhere,” Reka told Prishtina Insight a few hours before the opening ceremony.
Photo: Edmond Rexhepi
Indeed, the Albanian national symbol, that ethnic Albanians across the Western Balkans take pride in, is in every photograph, taken before, during, and after the Kosovo war, ranging from moments of mourning to celebration days. The Albanian national flag is sometimes accompanied by the United States flag, and sometimes even by the old Yugoslav flag.
Each part of the exhibition, down to how the photos were displayed, was carefully thought out by Reka to represent different aspects of Kosovo’s history. Laureta Osmani, the head of the Youth Municipality Assembly in Ferizaj, who attended the opening of the exhibition, told Prishtina Insight that “the hanging photo of the frames on chains shows us the social developments for more than three decades, from the movements of former activists for freedoms and human rights to the demonstrations and opposition to all forms of the [former Serbian President Slobodan] Milosevic regime.”
Osmani, who is 23 years old, believed that the way the photo frames are connected with chains helps the audience visualize many aspects of Kosovo Albanians’ fight for freedom and how their basic rights “were shackled,” like the photos are. She also linked the chains suspending the photos to Kosovo Albanians’ support for the [Kosovo Liberation Army] KLA which helped them to “break from Yugoslavia’s chains.” The photos in question show civilian victims of massacres in Likoshan and Reçak during the 1980s-1990s, many of whom were killed for peacefully protesting against the Slobodan Milosevic regime.
“Blood freezes” on the flag
Photo: Edmond Rexhepi
“The state is a brand, while the flag is its photograph – its icon,” publicist Halil Matoshi said at the opening of “Flatrat e Ngrira” (Frozen wings). “Maestro Reka does not just tell us about the sacrifices of Albanians to protect freedom and create their state, but he stops time between the two wings of the double-headed eagle, and during that interval, we see violence, death, tears, and mourning. There is the place where the blood freezes.”
One photograph depicts the black eagle on Albania’s flag completely torn apart by barbed wires near the KLA’s Checkpoint 6 in Jezerce near Ferizaj. “You can see how artistic it looks. You couldn’t do that even in drawings,” Reka said in front of his beloved photograph.
Reka also photographed ‘frozen’ moments of mourning and funerals of Kosovo Albanians from the beginning of the bloody disintegration of the former Yugoslavia to the first days of Kosovo’s independence.
Photo: Edmond Rexhepi
“The whole city should come and see the photographs, especially the youth, to know what we have suffered and to understand why we should not lose our way,” said Shemsije Gashi, a biology teacher at another school, as she was looking a photograph of Sheremet Sejdiu among his four killed sons, taken in 1998 in Likoshan, a village of Drenica.
The photo depicts Sejdiu sitting cross-legged in his home, in between his sons’ dead bodies wrapped in the Albanian flag.
“What a strong man,” said Shyrete Ramadani, one of Gashi’s retired colleagues, as they stared at photographs on the walls.
Photographer Reka told Prishtina Insight that Sejdiu “was outside in his front yard, and I asked him, even though it was difficult for me knowing what he was going through, if he could come into the oda (a traditional room for hosting guests in Albanian households) to take a photo.”
In recent years Reka has begun to visit the families of the war victims and martyrs he had photographed during the 1990s. When visiting Sejdiu, Reka saw that he “had printed this photograph, in an even larger format [than the one in the exhibition], and placed it in this very room [where the photograph was initially taken].”
“Can the time be photographed? Reka makes it possible for us”
Photo: Edmond Rexhepi
Reka visits Reçak every year on January 15, the date when over 40 Albanian civilians were massacred by Serbian forces in 1999.
“Here are the victims with flags in the mosque after they were brought from the Prishtina morgue,” Reka told Prishtina Insight. “Here I also saw [KLA fighter] Ahmet Kaçiku – and I have a photo of him too – before he was martyred,” in Reçak, four days after the massacre, Reka said.
“The flag covers the desires as well as the martyrs, it protects the fire of freedom in order to keep the flag alive,” Matoshi said in his speech, using the flag and martyrs as interchangeable metaphors.
“The scenes with the flag are photographs of different [historical] eras of Albanians, these scenes are the grandmothers and the lost generations, they are the dreams,” Matoshi continued, wondering “Can the time be photographed?”
“Reka makes it possible for us,” Matoshi answered in response to his own question. He offered an interpretation of Reka’s exhibition title choice, explaining that “të ngrira” (Frozen) and “të grira” (massacred) are only a one-letter difference. “This difference with N (between “frozen” and “massacred” in Albanian) tells us that the photographs are from a time when Albanians were massacred,” Matoshi concluded.
The photos from the first days of Kosovo in June 1999 mainly show funerals and protests. Nine years later, on Independence Day, February 17, 2008, Reka took photos of celebrations from different angles of a circular roof of the former Union hotel building in the heart of Prishtina. The contrasting emotions depicted in these photos from two important eras of Kosovo’s new history show “the unknown fate of the missing persons,” according to Reka.
Those photos from February 17, 2008, are also filled with the Albanian national flag. One of the photos shows some youngsters celebrating Kosovo’s Independence with Albanian flags because the Kosovo flag had not yet been decided.
“Now I also have my own country,” is written on the sweater of a bearded young man, with an Albanian and American flag waving over his head.
“Speechless speech” of the war photojournalist
Photo: Edmond Rexhepi
“The others also asked me why I didn’t photograph Kosovo’s flag, but there were no Kosovo flags in the [Prishtina main] square because the Kosovo flag came out later,” Reka said. On the day that Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia, Reka traveled to Kaçanik to capture how local people had placed dozens of Albanian national flags on both sides of the town’s bridge and only one American flag. During the first days of independent Kosovo, Reka would continue to travel to different cities and villages to take photographs that highlighted moments of celebration centered around the red and black flags.
Painter Lebibe Topalli said that Reka illustrated the spirit of war and peace with the red and black flag as his main motif. “This showcase is welcome for all of us here and especially for the students of this art school, who will enjoy these works of art. These are not just photographs, this is Hazir’s art, and it is a unique art, because each photograph carries a message. Within these photographs, you can see Hazir’s spirit.”
“The story of Hazir Reka with the Albanian flag is people’s speechless speech, with light and shadow, as a reflection of the attacks, the pain and the sadness,” Matoshi said. “But as a reflection of triumph too. Of joy. In freedom.”
The exhibition is open indefinitely.