Life After Zog - Chiara Tocci 

Chiara Tocci witnessed a wave of Albanians docking on the shores of her hometown in Italy in the 1990s, seeking refuge and opportunity following the collapse of communism. As a child, she imagined their stories and the country and families that they had left behind. Years later, she set out to explore this land and its people, turning her childhood dreams into photographs.

In Life After Zog, a skillful combination of tender portraits and documentary, Chiara Tocci reveals a place in transition, where modern life and Western trappings impact on a people who “share the land with their ancestors’ ghosts”. Life After Zog is a revealing and mythological portrait of rural Albania, depicting a place and a people for whom time has passed at a different pace, a country where the unseen Albanian legends coexist with the aging and rusting remains of decades of communist rule.

Chiara Tocci, who is based in Wales, was born in Bari, Italy. Her work is in the collections of the National Portrait Gallery and the National Museum of Wales and has been exhibited internationally. Life After Zog is her first monograph and is published by Schilt Publishing in April 2013.

This exhibition is supported by Schilt Publishing and Otley Brewing Company. Copies of Life After Zog will be available for sale at the opening.
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