Elena Gallina, a Rhodes Scholar who studied at Oxford 2019-2022, is a documentary photographer and economic researcher focused on feminist development. Having grown up in Kosovo in the aftermath of the ‘99 war, her artistic practice explores the disruption of power imbalances, post-war reconstruction, and women’s empowerment from within. ‘Çiknia jonë: Our Girlhood’ is a celebration through photography and textiles of the colour and joy of women, and the significance of feminine love in difficult circumstances.
“This exhibition is about our (Kosova) napkin trading practice specifically but it is metaphoric to our general tendency to me rrujt (guard and love and conserve) beautiful light-hearted things that are vetem per na (just for us). This practice goes as far back as the 60’s (my oldest interviewee was 89), carried right through to my own post-war epoch. Aunties, grandmothers, sisters, friends, cousins, daughters. Many collections were passed down generation to generation. Unfortunately in my city (Mitrovica) most homes were burned during the war. My interviewees of the pre-war era talked about their collections burning, but also how they started again with helping their young daughters in the 2000’s (my own generation).
As part of my praxis, in interviewing I asked women to comment not just on the nostalgia of our napkin trade, but on what womanhood meant to them: then, now, into the future. Too much photography and art focuses specifically on violence against women or the patriarchal barriers that define us. Here I am asking women simply to define themselves outside of that. This took effort as almost every interviewee responded related to our sfidat (challenges) in the first instance. Their eventual thoughts, to dig deeper on what it really means to us, are interspersed within the exhibition."
“I hope that visitors to this exhibition will take away colour, a tenderness, and a felt understanding that even amidst difficult boundaries there's something beautiful and special about the way women live, breathe, connect, and celebrate the mundane - in this case, paper napkins. I hope the show provides a place for celebration and reflection of girls’ history and ways of play.”
