po! paris Small Bllok, pocket format, Red Sample

The legendary Albanian notebook, symbol of Balkan genius and the Albanian quest for the small and simple pleasures of liberty during Enver Hoxha's collectivist regime.

The cover is cut out from large over printed test sheets (maculatura) with images from the socialist propaganda, making each piece unique.

These is an exemples with dominant red colours.

Notebooks, ?bllok" in Albanian, were rare and expensive at the time, so it was left to individuals to make their own. The blank sheets left over from children exercise books were simply bound together. The cover was often made out of what was commonly used as wrapping paper : newspapers or printing test-sheets of the regime's propaganda magazines.

Every Albanian had his own "bllok" used as a address book or as diary. Others filled them with stories or proverbs.

There are stories of Blloks traveling for glorious destinies, crossing the borders of this mysterious and isolated country in fascinating ways, to become editorial successes in Eastern Europe. Many are still wandering around, like messages in a bottle waiting for a reader.

After the fall of the regime blloks were treasured by their owners as a symbol of intimacy, a souvenir of times when anything private was seen as a sign of individualism, a daring crime in a collectivist society. In more recent times Edi Rama, mayor of Albania?s capital, is known to have used a bllok for his first sketches of Tirana's colorful facades.

We discovered the Bllok when Ylljet Ali?ka, the author of ??Les Slogans de Pierre?? (Slogans in Stone), showed us the small personal collection he keeps in his cabinet in the Albanian Embassy in Paris.