ZONA LAB is more than a residency program; it is a living laboratory at the intersection of contemporary art, research, and interdisciplinary education. Engaging critically with the complexities of our socio-political realities, the program fosters dialogue, collaboration, and artistic interventions that challenge, resist, and reimagine. Situated in a border city in Central and Eastern Europe, ZONA LAB actively embraces the fluidity of identity, territory, and belonging, turning its location into both a site of inquiry and a medium of expression.

The 2025 team—Laureta Hajrullahu, Alberto Lomas, Ayuna Shagdurova, and Natalia Vatsadze—embodies this spirit of engagement and critical exploration. Their diverse practices intersect at the fault lines of identity, technology, memory, and resistance, revealing the tensions and possibilities that define our contemporary condition.

Laureta Hajrullahu (Serbia/Kosovo) explores the porous boundaries between virtual and physical realities. Through multimedia installations, she examines privacy, gender, and intimacy within digital ecosystems, questioning the (im)possible futures of human connection in an era dominated by surveillance and algorithmic control.

Alberto Lomas (Spain) critically interrogates the politics of technology through performance and audiovisual installation. His practice, rooted in self-organized initiatives, scrutinizes the interplay between power structures and digital infrastructures, highlighting both their emancipatory potential and their inherent violence.

Ayuna Shagdurova (Russia/Germany), a documentary photographer and journalist of Buryat heritage, sheds light on Indigenous Siberian cultures, Buddhist and shamanic rituals, and the lived realities of rural Buryatia. Her work is an act of resistance against erasure, reclaiming visual narratives that challenge dominant historical discourses.

Natalia Vatsadze (Georgia) places the body at the center of her artistic and activist practice. With a sharp, cynical humor, she confronts social and political processes that have shaped Georgia’s post-Soviet transformation, exposing the contradictions of progress, nationalism, and cultural evolution.

As a discursive platform, ZONA LAB enables these artists to engage with local communities, activists, and scholars, deepening their research and expanding their practices beyond institutional and disciplinary confines. The residency’s six-month duration allows for an immersion that is both sustained and transformative, fostering collaborations that resonate beyond the temporal limits of the program.

This exhibition does not seek to offer conclusions; rather, it opens a space for inquiry, negotiation, and reconfiguration. It asks: How do we navigate the thresholds of belonging? What futures can be imagined from the liminal spaces we inhabit? Through critical artistic practice, the residents of ZONA LAB chart new cartographies of resistance, conviviality, and radical imagination.

Curated by Agata Rogos / Weiss

Agata Rogos / Weiss is a designer, researcher, curator, and anthropologist specializing in Border Studies, Migration Studies, and Urban Anthropology. She holds a professorship at the Academy of Arts in Szczecin and was a postdoctoral fellow at Humboldt University in Berlin. Her PhD, completed at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, focused on collective memory and identity in Macedonia. She has taught and lectured internationally and leads Vernacular Forms, a curatorial and design practice exploring research-based projects, design, and art installations.

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This work was produced with the financial assistance of the European Union. The views expressed herein can in no way be taken to reflect the official opinion of the European Union.

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