Jakup Ferri (born 1981 in Pristina Kosovo) began his career as a painter. After a short
interlude in which he was using video some seventeen years ago the artist started turning his
drawings into hand-made textile works. Ferri considers carpet-making and embroidery not only as
ways of producing a textile product but also as a technique of social interaction coherence
and community building. At the 59th Biennale Arte 2022 Ferri presents paintings embroideries
and carpets in a large-scale site-specific installation entitled The Monumentality of the
Everyday. Many of Ferri's works show everyday scenes involving animals children acrobats
musicians and sporting activities. At times the everyday or mundane turns into the surreal
or magical: monkeys speaking or making music people turning into birds people becoming
animals or hybrid creatures. With his works Ferri zooms in to the details of everyday life
shifting our focus away from big topics to create an imaginary world inspired by the immediacy
of life. His vivid portrayals of city life and leisure connect to folk elements and rituals
where the urban space merges with nature and where humans and animals act as equals like in
cartoons and comics or indigenous and vernacular imagery.
