Tirana, Albania … Hmmm, not what you would normally think of as a bright, happy place to live. But the mayor – a former basketball player turned artist turned politician is trying to change all that.
I read on aljazeera.net today a story about Edi Rama, current mayor of Tirana, Albania. He says:
“When I became mayor of Tirana it was like entering a Kafka book and becoming a person in danger of becoming totally metamorphosed by the very heavy power of the past and of the total lack of authority and hope in the city. Tirana was totally left behind and was very similar to a transit station in that everybody was thinking of how to escape. It was the greyest, dustiest, most hopeless city ever imagined…”
So what did he do?
Pretty awesome stuff. Not that paint can save a city, but it seems like it can get things off to a fresh start. Any thoughts out there?
Here’s the entire article for your reading pleasure: Art for Politics Sake (aljazeera.net in english).
