Project Bunker - Rethinking the relation of Albanian bunkers with the landscape and the society by aiming to reinvigorate the meaning of the bunkers and Albanians’ collective memory.

Abstract: Albania is a country situated in the western Balkan peninsula, it is a parliamentary democracy and a transitional economy. Its population is approximately 3.5 million with 870.00 populating its capital Tirana.1 The Mediterranean country underwent its most difficult times during the communist regime, where the dictator Enver Hoxha ruled the country with an iron fist for 40 years. His policies exercised brutal Marxist-Leninist tactics and ideologies which resulted on imposing a dreadful totalitarian regime upon the Albanian people. Under the regime of Enver Hoxha, the Albanian people lived in constant fear and paranoia. Hoxha’s isolationist policies culminated in the “bunkerization project” the construction of over 700.000 bunkers all over the country. A great financial and human cost to the nation. Today Albanians are living with the complicated and painful legacy of the regime, surrounded by bunkers. Struggling to make a transition from the painful and difficult traces of its past communist regime, today Albanians are finding new ways of co-existing and reusing the 700.000 bunkers which dot the whole landscape2. This thesis focuses on the collective memory of Albanians and investigates their relation to the bunkers. How do Albanians relate to the bunkers? What meaning do they carry and how did that change overtime? How do Albanians co-exist with these structures? And most importantly can these bunkers become a mediator or a metaphor of Albanians traumatic past and a possible brighter future, in coexistence with the bunkers? This thesis and report are based on theoretical research on the socio-phycological impact of painful/contested culture heritage and aims to reflect upon the possibilities of reinvigorating the meaning of the bunkers in relation with the landscape and the Albanian’s collective memory. The main outcome of the thesis is the “Project Bunker” film, which aims to stimulate attention to aspects that matter, rise questions and perhaps answer some, it also intends to authentically express and transmit the experience I personally had during my visit in Albania and in some way to allow the audience enter my thought process.