Between the conscious and the unconscious: Fitim Haziri’s Perfect Reaction

Fitim Haziri’s Perfect Reaction opened at Europe House Pristina in March, while he engaged in a discussion with the visitors later in April. We spoke to him to find out more about his unique art practice consisting of single lines and blue colours. 

1. Your art practice is quite unique, with only lines and blue color, where does this come from?

Having finished the cycle of drawings of only lines and blue colour, I started to think about how I would put them in a space and think about how the engagement and interaction would take place. As everyday experiences are told in different ways and we embrace what we think is ours, something similar happened when I was intentionally paying attention to my actions and how I would choose to tell a story or an experience, be that personal or heard.   

2. Drawing is central in your artistic practice, how does it usually start?

I use drawing as a primary technique, on paper or digital. It usually starts with the words that are stuck in my thoughts and it consists of a moment where I try to translate the word or words into the drawing form of the human body with only gestures and positioning. Installation and lighting are the evolving parts of the image that I first draw and by analysing it, I start to think of how the particular story would take place on an empty space based on the same image of the paper which is also an empty space.

3. How do you choose the materials and mediums for your artworks, and how do they contribute to the overall message of the exhibition?

Considering the body of a living being as material that lives in its natural form, also takes me to the idea of parallel living of other processed materials that can be used to tell the same story but without the spoken language, with only the message remaining as a form.

4. Can you tell us more about the social context that informs your art practice? 

Everything that I know and learn is internal, while also being active and present. Serving as a mirror of ideas, people, and expressions, in the times that we’re living is all part of the context that I explore and work on with specific techniques.

The intention of my artwork is to always rethink where we are positioned, be that physical or emotional, there is always space to expand within our ideas and create a place where we function, with and around us.

5. Who do you address through your artwork and what kind of social debate do you intend to foster through your artwork? 

Collective consciousness and unconsciousness inon the body as a memory and as a personal experience, told through other people’s stories. I try to put that out on each drawing so the viewer can empathise with them or relate in any emotional form that they can experience it. While they tend to understand the image, my intention is to help them reflect on their thoughts and raise questions of their own selves.   

6. Are there any specific artists, movements, or art historical references that influence your artworks? 

Surrealistic forms of expression when it comes to drawings and story narrativesnarrative are usually what I take out of my work. It portrays the main idea of using dreams and reality, consciousness and unconsciousness all together while in them is poetry, and imagination, and gives you the possibility of also adding another layer of things, thoughts and space is perceived.

7. Is there any piece within the exhibition artworks that holds a special place for you and if so, why?

            Each one of them has the effect of making me rethink the time that I put on  

            making and realise that the story of all of them together holds each other as one.