...why do you hold back?

Doruntina Kastrati

The exhibition unfolds across all floors of the building through a series of site-specific installations. In dialogue with Röda Sten Konsthall’s industrial architecture and its historical connection to the area’s sugar industry, Kastrati explores the relationship between body, machine and labour. Through sculpture, video, sound and monumental reliefs, she draws on materials and narratives connected to confectionery production, examining how repetitive movements and long working hours shape both the body and lived experience.

The exhibition title, …why do you hold back? , is taken from the opening line “My tears, why do you hold back?”, from Barbara Strozzi’s seventeenth-century composition Lagrime mie . The question echoes throughout the exhibition, giving form to the tension between silence and expression, restraint and resistance.

Doruntina Kastrati represented Kosovo at the 2024 Venice Biennale, where she received a Special Mention for The Echoing Silences of Metal and Skin . Most of the works in the exhibition have been created specifically for Röda Sten Konsthall.

The exhibition is curated by Amila Puzić.