Bio

Zeni Alia (b. 1994, Tirana, Albania) is a documentary photographer and painter whose work examines social environments and the material traces of historical and cultural change. He has worked primarily with photography, developing a restrained visual approach that sits between documentary practice and reflective observation.

Alia studied Fine Arts at the University of Arts in Tirana. He approaches photography as a slow and deliberate process, allowing meaning to emerge through time, repetition, and sustained observation rather than through direct narrative.

Growing up in post-communist Albania, Alia belongs to a generation shaped by ongoing social and political change. The idea of transition is a recurring presence in his work, not as a fixed historical moment, but as a lived condition. His photographs reflect a state of in-betweenness, where change is visible but unresolved.

All of his projects are developed in Albania and conceived as extended studies of specific locations. Alia works through repeated visits and long-term engagement, allowing individual images to accumulate into cohesive bodies of work. Human presence is rarely depicted directly; instead, it is suggested through altered surfaces, traces of use, and the quiet impact of everyday activity. Ambiguity plays a central role, encouraging viewers to reflect on memory, instability, and change.

Alia has exhibited both in Albania and internationally. In 2025, he presented his work at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University in North Carolina. Zeni Alia lives and works in Tirana.