JAKUP FERRI: Help Me, Save Me

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Jakup Ferri, "Help Me, Save Me," 2018

video still

Help Me, Save Me can be seen as a sort of “test video” from Jakup Ferri’s early experiments in producing video art, prepared in anticipation of a Western curator’s visit to his university in Prishtina, Kosovo. Sitting in his dishevelled bedroom, Ferri attempts to sell/promote/contextualize select works from his portfolio to gain access to the Western art world vis-à-vis the unnamed curator’s interest in his practice.

As he begins to arrange the objects to show, he imagines: “Maybe someday I’ll be chosen by some curator or by any other important person who can invite me for an exhibition or something similar, and finally some day I’ll be saved by God and who knows maybe I can earn money and become famous.” While speaking from his own desire for recognition, Ferri echoes the sentiments of his own people, my people, all people that continue to wait outside the immovable doors of the western art world. In its presentation as a film still at window, Help Me, Save Me is asked to return to this in-between space of waiting and wanting to shed new light on the politics of inclusion and visibility that continue to haunt artists occupying space outside the hegemonic center.

About the Artist:Jakup Ferri is a multidisciplinary artist based in Prishtina and Den Haag. From his video work to his current practise in print and textile-based media, the artist employs processes of intuition and spontaneity to direct his work. Ferri has exhibited his work extensively in international exhibitions and biennials, including: Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Art, Quartett - Vier im Spiegel GRAFISCHER Biennale Blatter, Tanas, Berlin, Art Rotterdam, Galerie de EXPEDITIE, The Center for Hisorical Reenactment, Johannesburg, South Africa, etc.

The Installation will be accompanied by an interview with the artist, to be published on window's Tumblr in the coming weeks.