The poem written while living Bar Tore, which gave birth to the following little piece you are about to read:
Multidimensionality
The intimacy it creates
Feeding love back to the people
They come —
not knowing where they are heading to,
yet arriving right on time
For a drink
For a cigarette
With a friend
With strangers
Or maybe, just like me
for a couple of minutes with just yourself
Bar Tore lives in the in-between
Between construction and comfort.
These spaces, each layered with memory, have served as places of gathering and more.
Bar Tore continues this journey while reimagining it in the context of a public installation. Built with modest but iconic materials—2×2 meter layer modules, white and ochre monoblock chairs, beautiful yellow neon lights, maple wood tops placed on Coca-Cola crates and a soft white cover that encircles its perimeter—it brings to one’s mind the informal yet intentional ambience of bars as social architectures. These elements, both familiar and reconfigured, compose the space as simultaneously ongoing and inhabited, welcoming all people.
Visitors arrive not knowing exactly where they are headed, yet find themselves arriving on time—for a drink, for a cigarette, for a moment alone or in the company of others. In this mutable space-time continuum, Bar Tore becomes a site for shared presence. Here, the act of gathering is not an outcome but a continuous unfolding. At the core of the installation is Gossips, Bar Tore Confidential, conceived by the artist Mikołaj Sobczak as part of his research residency with Art Explora 2024. Serving as both backdrop and narrative anchor, Gossips with its two lateral velvet red curtains, function as the scenography of a collective theater. In both a literal and symbolic sense, they open onto a space where community is not fixed but continuously transformed.
Throughout the festival, Bar Tore hosts performances, poetry readings, and conversations, becoming a truly creative space for human interactions. In collaboration with Radio AlHara, it also broadcasts music and live events, turning the bar into a transmitter of frequencies—audible, emotional, political. You can find of the our beloved curated playlists here.
After all, Bar Tore offers more than a place to rest or to watch. It offers an invitation to participate in a temporary yet deeply resonant community practice. In its commitment to closeness and perpetual becoming, it reminds us that beauty often resides in the in-progress.
Art Explora Festival Durrës
April 10 to April 21
www.artexplora.org/en/festival/city/durres
Rrezearta Agasi is an architect and researcher based in Tirana, currently studying Building Engineering and Architecture at the University of Padova. Her work focuses on urban regeneration and the metaphysical aspects of architecture. She incorporates her creative expression in her work, combining her technical expertise with her love for philosophy, literature, and writing. Agasi has been the assistant in production for the program implemented in Art Explora Festival and is currently working at Anima Pictures – www.instagram.com/rrezjadiellit.
