UN/SAID

UN/SAID is the title of the open-ended collaboration that took place between two strangers, John Dougan Nealon and Stefano Romano at Bulevard Art and Media Institute in Tirana from Monday 28th April, through Friday 2nd May 2025. Ahead of this meeting, the artists’ chose to use the term uncertainty as their launch point. From this, they have begun to realise a point of invitation that will ask outside participants to anonymously share the things that they hold within - their secrets. Romano and Nealon used the short time afforded to them, to develop a framework and context for this invitation. The process will then conclude with a public performance on Saturday 3rd May 2025, at the venue. During this performance, the submissions were read allowed and destroyed by the artists to the backdrop of works by each of them, who individually presented a visual interpretation of the secret. These works were also created in the same timeframe. For Romano, he used drawing as his medium, in which he used surrealist sketches to portray his vision. While Dougan Nealon produced a large scale string sculpture, that drew emphasis to the entanglements, and knots we wind within ourselves and with each other, and the process of repetition involved in this procedure.

To gather the submissions, the artists experimented with various methods of public outreach. This spanned personal network outreach via apps like Whatsapp, to using Google Forms and other online services such as reddit. It also meant asking people in person. Both strangers and people they knew alike. 

The performance, accompanying imagery and a contextual video used in the gallery during the performance can be viewed below.

Photography below by Nadia Abazi