New Routes

The series of oil paintings aims to present the concept of home, particularly focussing on linking home to particular places, on the physical space of memory, social relationships and positive emotional attachments with consideration of the multiple routes leading to home. The motivations for undertaking this project is a continuation of my PhD research at the University of Derby and to reflect on the current trend of globalization, which constantly questions the concepts of identity, culture, and nationality, making it no longer easy to define the nature of the local and the international. Drawing upon my personal transnational experience, in many of the paintings the intention is to present the concept of the transnational home closely linked to a sense of belonging for migrants. I focussed on aesthetics as idealised images evolved, particularly in scenes of longing for home, but also the lack of feeling for the new transnational home. My intention was not to represent nostalgic images, where time is more significant than place, and home is imagined, idealized, or memorialized, giving a feeling of loss of home, rather than a more positive idea of having multiple conceptualisations of home. This reality is the lived experience and memory of different places and spaces which is formed and developed during life. These aspects are also intended to suggest how the concept of the transnational home can be questioned, challenged, interpreted through and visually represented in art practice. However, through the critical investigation conducted in my art practice, the visual form is not intended and should not be seen as a theoretical illustration of Albanian migration, rather as creating the possibility to communicate with the audience. Thus I intended to show different forms of home and place identity of transnationalism, with the series of works incorporating and complementing each other, not intending to achieve a final definition of transnationalism or the concept of home, rather to leave space, to provoke a debate, and to influence the advancement of other studies on this subject.

Dr. Dashamir Vaqarri

A note about prices

Signed Giclée Limited Edition prints of all the works are available with prices starting at £150 (for a 60 cm high, unframed print; other sizes available, limited-edition prints, each size ed. of 100). Again, please leave your preferred size and contact details. Contact info: email dvaqarri@hotmail.com