Auction
/9
- Auction
- 2002
- 9 photographs, color, digital print
- each 70 x 50 cm
In his photo series “Auction,” Erzen Shkololli plays with Kosovo’s belief in freedom after the NATO’s bombing of Serbia in 1999, which was supposed to put an end to the war between ethnic Serbs and ethnic Albanians. The work shows people of different ages and genders standing inside dilapidated houses and holding up paper sheets with numbers written on them. All these people smile happily into the camera as if awaiting the opportunity of their lives. Yet, this act was nothing else than a routine check by UNMIK, the UN governing forces, to get an overview of the area and its people. Shkololli got hold of these photographs from an archive and used them as found footage material which functions like a police file. Moreover, these pictures are reminiscent of the numbering of concentration camps prisoners, whose life expectancy was not meant to be very high. The correlation between the latter and Shkololli’s photos is the uncertain fate these people have to face. W.S.