u.polis minimal commons: Linda LOKA_ 'Mihal Grameno Street'

Process of approach

1_Photography of the area

2_Interviews with actors

3_ID-Phenomena

4_Photo of the profile creation
(Imaginary profile)

5_Text of the actor's profile and the scenario

Profile

Anita Bejko is a full time mom. She is 42 years old.

She came to this neighborhood after she got married, living at first with her husband and her mother in law. After the death of her mother in law the 2 room apartment, now belongs to her and her husband. She has 2 boys. One of them is in high school (12 years old) and the other one is in mid school (17 years old).

She is a brunette with short hairs. She is a protective mom. Having 2 boys it’s not easy for her cause she is worried about them half of the time. Anita had worked before she gave birth to her 2 boys but after a few times she stopped working so she could take care of her children.

Anita stays at home most of her time.

At 7.30-7.45 she takes her little son to school. She takes with her only her wallet, because the school is nearby. When leaving the house she carries her boy’s bag in her back and on her way she troughs the garbage of the day before. Anita always hurries up because she has a lot of works to do during the day. After dropping her boy to school she buys some things for her home. She starts from the vegetable bazaar that is nearby her house. She buys the vegetables and the other things that she needs to cook dinner. She buys mostly potatoes, beans, salad, tomatoes and what she can find that’s a season’s vegetable. She likes to cook healthy for her 3 men. She cooks typical Albanian dishes, but what can’t be missing in her table is meat. Her husband is an ‘avid meat eater’. Anita usually cooks dishes with vegetables and meat inside.

Vegetables are her first aim, and then she goes to different markets to buy the things that are necessary for her. She knows all the markets in the neighborhood because she buys in all of them. She salutes all the market sellers and some of her neighbors. She does that because she knows in every market what is their best product, also she knows the prices in different markets.

Anita is a selective person. She wants the best products she can find with the lowest price in the area. Fresh vegetables are her second target. Then she goes for the yogurt (Lufra, is a local yogurt succeeding in the local market), milk etc. These are the main things she buys in the morning because these are the fresher things she can find in this time.

She goes back to her home passing through the tunnel.

She enters home and the first thing she does is drop her keys and the wallet on the shelf in her hallway. Then she heads to the kitchen and drops what she bought on the kitchen’s table. She cleans up her house. This all happens before 12 o’clock. Around this time she is almost finished with her cleanings and she starts cooking. She cooks while watching the rerun of her favorite TV show on television. While cooking she remembers that she forgot to buy some spices for her dinner. Anita forgets things. She tends to remember the main, important things but sometimes she forgets the little things. This tendency makes her repeat some of her behaviors.

Although she forgets this things, she always has a keen eye of what is going around and how should everything be done so it can go in the right direction.

After cooking dinner she goes to pick up her son at school. On her way back she buys some things again. She goes to buy bread, because she knows that in this hour its fresher, she buys some desserts for after dinner. During this time she salutes some of the other mothers cause they have a similar routine with her. With her bag in the back, her wallet, in which she has also her cell phone, she continues her shopping.

While being near her house she remembers the spices she has to buy. Her boy meets some of his friends and he stays with them while Anita continues to do her buying. After that, she calls her boy to help her with some bags, and they enter home. After about an hour her other boy calls her from the balcony, to ask her for some money cause he’s going to stay in the neighborhood with a group of friends. She gives him the money and tells him to buy some coca cola on his way home. She prepares the plate of dinner for each of her boys and lies down in the living room’s couch. The dinner table is ready and so she doesn’t need to get up when everyone wants to eat. First her big boy comes home and then her husband is the last.

During dinner time she likes to sit down in her living room and watch some TV because she is tired. When her husband eats dinner they chat together. She likes to chat with her family members to know what’s going around with their life so nothing slips out of her sight. She is a dominant member in her family although she is the only female member.

Her afternoons, usually during summer are spent outside in the neighborhood with some of her neighbors. In the colder times she likes to take care of things to fix in the house. She tends to separate the bottles from each other because she likes to give them back to the markets she bought them. Ex: plastic bottles to the milk market and bottles of beers in the other markets. The water bottles are given usually to the villagers that sell nearby vegetables.

She likes to sew sometimes. She likes to be active in her family life but also in her neighbor life.

Anita is a secure person, maybe also because of the work she has done before getting married. Before getting married she used to work in an old factory as a director of the production section of bottles during the communist time. She tries to be active by knowing everything that will be changed in the neighbor. As every other female she likes to chat and know things about their neighbors.

At night she usually prepares the clothes for her family members for the next day and selects the clothes that need to be washed up, the next day.

She likes to take the shower at night, after everyone is sleeping and she can find the quite she needs.

Sometimes when Anita is involved with outside domestic walls., ex: doing paper works, paying electricity or telephone bills, she doesn’t cook but she orders pizza in, cause nearby her home there is a bread store that also cooks a very good pizza.

She is a calm person and always tries to see the optimistic side of the things. She is a passionate person and likes to talk with her hands when tries to explain something.

So another day starts after this.

ID-Phenomena & profile actor

Garbage – Anita throws the garbage every day before dropping her boy to school. She feels the smell of the garbage. She thinks ‘Thank God the trash is near because I have a lot of things to do and I don’t want to go too far’, but at the end of the day she thinks ‘God everything it’s so dirty. How can I live like that, when I live next to the garbage? I feel in a way dirty’.

Kids – Anita most of the times thinks about her kids. Her protective side reflects in the way she looks at the people that go through the space. She looks how her kids go near the garbage and she worries about them. She feels the need to have a special place for them, so she can leave them alone so she wouldn’t need to think about them. She thinks how her kids can behave if a place like this really exist.

Chat – Anita almost grew up in this space,. She knows everyone that comes and goes through the space. She can recognize the people that do not belong in her neighborhood. She likes to talk to her ‘friends’ in the neighbor. She is not an avid chatter but she enjoys from time to time meeting some of her friends and talking about the new things that are going on around.

Funeral car – One of her neighbors has a funeral agency. She remembered the time when her mother in law died and she called her neighbor’s agency to do all the preparation. These memories reminded her on how crowded the neighborhood was and on how the cars would move with difficulty. Her mother in law died about 7 years ago. She though how easier would be if these parked cars would not be part of her space, although on the other hand her husband would not know where to park his own car.

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