Gjama

Gjama is a rarely practiced mourning ritual that was performed by Albanian men throughout the centuries By shouting specific phrases and acting out a strict choreography it is a way of paying respect to the deceased but also overcoming grief and pain over the loss of a loved one Through the documentation of the reenactment of the ritual Zgjim Elshani seeks to recover fragments of the practice in the communities where this form of collective grieving is still a way of overcoming loss By doing so the project intends to rethink collective grieving and what it means to publicly display emotions in a maleheaded society