This September, Vila31 x Art Explora — the historic Tirana villa once home to dictator Enver Hoxha — became the stage for Mara, a landmark gathering of contemporary art and cultural exchange organised by Khrais – Tërshana.

 

Bringing together over twenty artists from Albania and across Europe — including Keith Farquhar, Łukasz Surowiec, Leonard Qylafi, Kentaro Okumura, Franklin Collins, Genti Korini, Patrycja Piętka, and Ada Bond — Mara assembled a constellation of practices across painting, sculpture, performance, and design.

 

The name Mara imagines the collector who does not yet exist. While in the West figures like Peggy Guggenheim or Gertrude Stein shaped cultural legacies through patronage, Albania’s communist past left such possibilities unrealised. Here, in Vila31, Mara becomes an avatar for the future: not a reference to art history abroad, but a person who has yet to begin collecting.

 

At once celebratory and strategic, Mara positions collecting as a form of cultural authorship, marking the first step in writing Albania’s presence into the global art conversation.