Founding director of Autostrada Biennale Vatra Abrashi. Courtesy Autostrada Biennale.
IBA Stage: 4th Autostrada Biennale
August 23, 2023 (Wednesday)
1:00pm (Prizren/GMT+2)
We are delighted to have Vatra Abrashi, founding director of Autostrada Biennale, again with us as a guest of IBA. We had the pleasure of hearing her talk during the 9th General Assembly in a panel about the role of biennials as tools for educational, cultural and social development last year (find the whole video recording here), and we are sure many of those thoughts will be part of the discussion again this year. We are certain her experience and passion for culture as a tool to develop dialogue in her hometown of Prizren will undoubtedly make this discussion one not to miss.
Vatra Abrashi is co-founder and education director of the Autostrada Biennial. Born in 1989 in Prizren, she graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Prishtina with a Bachelor’s degree and a Master’s degree in Pedagogy. She also graduated in speech and language therapy at Heimerer College. She worked for 4 years at the Council for Defense of Human Rights and Freedoms in Prishtina as a leader of various projects for the protection of minority rights, gender equality and children’s rights. Then she worked for 5 years as a pedagogue in the Counseling Center of SOS Children’s Villages Kosovo. In recent years she is focused on developing the Autostrada Biennale as the first international contemporary art biennale in Kosovo. As the only contemporary art institution in Prizren, Autostrada Biennale functions on two speeds: one is a physical exhibition that takes place every two years since 2017, the other is the new education, production and exhibition space called “Autostrada Hangar” in the former KFOR military base now ITP (Innovation and Training Park in Prizren). With the latter, Autostrada has extended the publicness of its platform by considering art production as a sustainable form of learning and exchange that will address the needs of the communities.
Vatra was part of IVLP in April 2019 in Washington DC through the program “Promoting economic development through cultural tourism”.
As always IBA Stage events are meant as a moment to hear about a project through its makers and have the opportunity to participate in a Q&A session at the end of the presentation.
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