A project in production · Kosovo, 2023 to now
Kinship
Families, the old code of the kanun, and the ties that hold when the state does not. Photographs, film and field notes from Kosovo.
Entry one · The river
In Mitrovica the Ibar runs between the Albanian south and the Serbian north. The bridge is short.
People do cross it. Women with shopping, men to work, children to school. Most of the town still lives on one bank or the other.
Entry two · The tree on the wall
In a school corridor hangs a family tree. One founder at the root, hundreds of names in the branches.
Someone had drawn it by hand and printed it large. Men came to point out their fathers, and then themselves.
From the family albums, eastern Kosovo
Scanned with the families in June and July 2023, fronts and backs, and shared with their permission.
Field note · The backs of the photographs
We scanned the backs as well as the fronts.
A studio stamp, a date, a dedication to a friend. The handwriting tells you who a picture was for. In a kinship society, that matters as much as who is in it.
Field note · The code
The kanun is the old law of the mountains. Nobody mentions it in the first hour.
It sits in smaller things. Where a guest is seated. Who speaks first. Who keeps the door. A promise given is a promise kept.
Entry three · The doors
Families here pose in front of their gates. I stopped asking why.
The gate is the edge of the house. The house is where a family keeps its honour, and its guests safe.
Entry four · The film
End of the walk
Kinship, in production
Fieldwork in February and June 2023, with a film crew on the second trip. Faces and places are shown with care. Some stories will only be told when it is safe to tell them.
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