In the video installation And then i found some meteorites in my room (2018), Zeneli places at the centre two protagonists – Bujar and Flora, father and daughter, coal gatherers from the post-industrial outskirts of Elbasan. Bujar, a self-taught astronomer, presents his personal theories of the solar system and dark matter, while Flora, under the name DJ Sulejmani, performs electronic music, while footage from the International Space Station reverberates through the space. The audience is not merely an observer but an active particle of this performance – “just as we are all part of the solar system.”
Zeneli’s practice explores the notion of failure, dreams and alternative worlds, often through collaborative performances and participatory film installations. In his works, representations of power, science and mythology intertwine with personal narratives of marginalised subjects, generating unexpected but precious utopias.
Zeneli’s work may also be viewed as an example of what Amos Vogel, in his book Film as a Subversive Art, called a “cinema of subversion” – a practice that does not flatter aesthetic conventions or ideological expectations, but instead seeks to displace the viewer from their comfort zone and open a space for new awareness. As Vogel writes, subversive film “rests on the tension between society and the artist,” and its true effect begins “in the moment when the lights go down and the screen lights up” – when film becomes a ritual, a tool of introspection and a space where the real and the imaginary meet. Zeneli’s installation, in which peripheral knowledge – such as Bujar’s cosmology – is elevated to a level of narrative equivalence with scientific truth, is in this sense a powerful example of “the utopian function of film”, grounded not in escapism, but in the capacity to imagine what does not yet exist.
Due to unforeseen circumstances, there has been a change in the exhibition programme of the Kinematografije otpora cycle. Instead of the previously planned exhibition, the work of Driant Zeneli is presented, whose artistic research strongly resonates with the theme of the festival and the curatorial concept.
The exhibition is supported by the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia, the City of Zagreb, the Croatian Audiovisual Centre and the Association of Albanians in the City of Zagreb and Zagreb County.
About the artist:
Driant Zeneli (1983, Shkodër, Albania) lives between Tirana and Turin. He graduated in sculpture and multimedia from the Academy of Fine Arts in Macerata (Italy). His most important solo exhibitions were held at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb (Richter Collection, 2024), the National Gallery of North Macedonia (2022), the National Gallery of Kosovo (2019), the Albanian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2019), GAMEC Bergamo, Villa Medici in Rome, GAM Torino, and others.
He has participated in numerous group exhibitions, including: EMST Athens and Sharjah Biennale 16 (2025), Bienal de La Habana and Ruhr Triennale (2024), MAXXI Rome, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Dhaka Art Summit (2023), Manifesta 14, Teatrino Palazzo Grassi, EVA Biennial Limerick, Centre Pompidou, ZKM Karlsruhe, MUSAC León, among many others.
He is the recipient of several awards, including the Italian Council (2024), Moroso Concept Prize (2017), Young European Artist Award (2009), and the Onufri Prize (2008). He was the artistic director of the Mediterranea 18 Biennale and co-founder of the Harabel platform in Tirana. Since 2008, he has led educational programmes for children that combine storytelling, electronics and robotics to develop imagination and critical thinking through art. He teaches at universities in Tirana and Rome.
From the artist’s statement:
How do we push the boundaries of our limitations without becoming superheroes? Can the possible be balanced with the imaginary? At the core of my work lies the redefinition of failure, utopia and dreams – as a way of resisting the given order. I treat films as material with which I shape space and time; the meaning of the work always arises in collaboration with others.
About the programme Kinematografije otpora:
Kinematografije otpora is a long-term museum programme developed by MSU Zagreb in collaboration with the Subversive Festival. It presents international filmmakers and artists whose work emerges at the intersections of contemporary art and film, combining elements of artist film, film essay and experimentation. The programme is concerned with authorial positions that resist mainstream canons and is characterised by intermediality, intertextuality and social engagement. The resistance referred to in the title points to the search for alternative models of thinking and representing the moving image and narrative within contemporary visual culture.
So far, the programme has featured: Maud Alpi (2018), Sabine Mikelić (2019), Nicole Hewitt (2021), Jasmina Cibic (2023), Nika Autor (2023), and Milica Rakić (2024).
