By Judith Broeker | AiP Program Director
Ilir Rizaj, a professional photographer based in New York City, has just signed on as an AiP volunteer to help us solve a dilemma. It is very important for us to provide a quick snapshot of both existing needs and progress being made, in a format that’s easy to understand and full of information. Without this, those of you interested in helping find solutions to Gjirokastra’s problems are left thinking in the abstract. Photographs fill that bill perfectly, but we have had difficulty generating the types of powerful images we need.
After AiP’s May session in Gjirokastra, this will no longer be an issue.
Ilir has stepped up and offered his time and talents – and even his airfare – to provide you and other project supporters with new visual information on Gjirokastra’s remarkable but, sadly, endangered tower houses. He will focus on illustrating the work AiP and our volunteers have undertaken, along with that of other organizations active in the old town.
Highlights will be the decorative painting at the Skenduli and Kikino houses, and documentation of the dire situation at the Kabili house, which has suffered a partial collapse, but still has tenants. We will share his photographs and videos with you this summer. He’s even using a drone to provide a perspective of our project sites that none of us has seen.
Mr. Rizaj currently lives in New York City, but is originally from Kosovo and has a deep understanding of the conditions and problems of the region. He is currently working on a documentary of Ottoman-era architecture in Kosovo and says of his passion for photography:
My journey as a photographer began in my native Kosovo, where the exotic East meets the cool modernism of the West in both culture and architecture – a fascinating harmony of history and artistry. As I sought out ways of visually exploring them through my camera lens, photography had found me.
We can’t wait to see Ilir’s images and share them with you. We think they will inspire all of us to redouble our efforts to save the irreplaceable resource that is Gjirokastra’s key to a brighter economic future.
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
