Driton Selmani
“I wish you were a plastic bag so that you could be eternal”. Coined by Driton Selmani, this epigram is one of hundreds to fill the pages of his notebooks. At the moment he transferred it to a plastic bag, it became a love letter, one of the multitude of missives to everyone and no one the artist has been composing since 2018.
The idea for this expansive body of work emerged out of the realisation that love is to be found as much in the shopping lists your partner sends you – buy four aubergines, a bottle of olive oil and something to go with the tea – as it is in a poem, a letter, a text or sext message.
Covering topics from politics to ecology, from art to philosophy, the plastic love letters function as a kind of journal to last ten thousand years, as an ongoing documentation of everyday epiphanies and postulations, desires and anxieties.
Driton Selmani (1987, RKS) is a Kosovar artist whose artistic practice deconstructs formations of social, political, and cultural topics that have been embodied within him. From a young age, he was told to worship a country that doesn’t exist. This created a scepticism within him that he later turned into a tool to reconstruct his beliefs into visual artifacts.
Works
Driton Selmani
Love Letters
2018–ongoing
01.
In Dreams, You Will Lose Your Heartaches
2022
Acrylic paint on found plastic bag.
02.
Let’s Pretend
2020
Acrylic on high-density polyethylene (HDPE) plastic bag
03.
Springfields
2021
Acrylic on high-density polyethylene
04.
It’s All In Your Head
2020
Acrylic on high-density polyethylene (HDPE) plastic bag
05.
Amun-Ra
2022
Acrylic paint on found plastic bag.
06.
I Did Not
2020
Acrylic on high-density polyethylene (HDPE) plastic bag
07.
Never
2022
Acrylic on high-density polyethylene (HDPE) plastic bag.
08.
Lost For Words
2021
Acrylic on high-density polyethylene (HDPE) plastic bag
09. Green Market
2020
Acrylic on found plastic bag
10.
Spoken Words, Not Written Ones
2020
Marker on high-density polyethylene (HDPE) plastic bag
11.
Dreams
2021
Acrylic on high-density polyethylene (HDPE) plastic bag
12.
My Nature
2020
Acrylic on found plastic bag
13.
Blue Like Deep Blue
2019
Ink on found plastic bag
14.
Non Places
2020
Acrylic on found plastic bag
15.
Background
2021
Acrylic on high-density polyethylene (HDPE) plastic bag
16.
Tell Them
2022
Acrylic on high-density polyethylene (HDPE) plastic bag
17.
All Of This
2020
Acrylic on high-density polyethylene (HDPE) plastic bag
1.
Two Wrong Doors
2021
Marker on found plastic bag
2.
Go, Go, Go
2020
Marker paint on found plastic bag.
3.
99% Chance Of Rain
2019
Marker on found plastic bag
4.
Punching The Air
2022
Acrylic on high-density polyethylene (HDPE) plastic bag
5.
Bears Like It Too
2019
Ink on found plastic bag
6.
The Emperor's New Glasses
2021
Acrylic on high-density polyethylene (HDPE) plastic bag
Courtesy of the artist
Past
Love Letters: A conversation with Driton Selmani and Catherine Nichols
17.09.2022 18.00-20.00
● Centre for Narrative Practice