Fragments I – Where Stories Cut Across The Land | Vangjush Vellahu

Much more than a mere cinematographic idea, Fragments I is a series of video documents detailing a journey through non-holistic socio-political pulsars: The Republic of Abkhazia, a state of limited recognition; Varosha, a silent town in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, recognized only by Turkey; through the Field of Blackbirds(1) in Kosovo, a state of limited recognition; at the edge of the Tskhinvali region of the Republic of South Ossetia, a partially recognized state; in the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic or the Republic of Artsakh, a state unrecognized by any sovereign state; and in Transnistria, or the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, a self-proclaimed, non-recognized, autonomous territorial unit with a special legal status.

Contrasts and “conflicts that make visible emergent spaces of citizenship”(2) represent the obscurity of the Capitalocene in a different fashion. Much more than capitalist slaves, citizens of unrecognized states are victims of conflicts. But which is the lesser of two evils here? Of course, the fight for survival is much more difficult than the fight against instrumentalization, although these are not necessarily mutually exclusive battles. But let’s not get into that yet.

1. The term the “Field of Blackbirds” refers to the Battle of Kosovo, which took place in 1389 near to what is known as Pristina today, and where Serbs fought against the Ottomans. It also marks the first time Kosovo was officially mentioned in history, using this term.
2. Niall Atkinson, Ann Lui and Mimi Zeiger, “On Dimensions of Citizenship,” Dimensions of Citizenship (Los Angeles: Inventory Press, 2018), 28.