Lala was born in Sarajevo to a British mother and a Kosovar Albanian father. After her parents divorced when she was five, Lala lived in Britain. At sixteen, she re-established her ties with Kosovo. Lala’s work as an artist and photographer has been heavily influenced by the war in Kosovo and her dual heritage.
Lala was born in Sarajevo in 1966. She comes from a mixed background. Her mother is British and met her father, an ethnic Albanian from Kosovo, while studying in the former Yugoslavia.
After her parents divorced when she was five, Lala lived in Britain with her mother. She had very little contact with her family in Kosovo until she returned at the age of sixteen. Lala then discovered that she had three half sisters.
While in Kosovo, Lala became aware of the difficulties facing ethnic Albanians, including members of her own family.
‘I had an uncle in prison and he was a case for Amnesty International because he was a prisoner of conscience.’
Lala studied Art at Goldsmiths University during which she continued to visit Kosovo. She then did her postgraduate studies in photography at Pristina University.
She started the same year Slobodan Milosevic became President of Serbia.
‘I literally arrived when he [Milosevic] got to power and suddenly the miners were striking and Kosovo was straight in the news.’
During this time, Lala’s father who was an architect lost his job with the Department of Monuments.
And the relationship between Serbs and ethnic Albanians was deteriorating rapidly.
‘It was just this pulling away of two people, it’s a shame…’
When war broke out in Kosovo in 1999, Lala campaigned tirelessly in Britain to raise awareness about the plight of Kosovar Albanians. Her father, stepmother and one sister stayed in Kosovo. Two sisters came to Britain.
After the war Lala returned to Kosovo as a translator and consultant for the British Red Cross.
‘We had the British public’s money, that’s what we were armed with…this was another beautiful thing to do with me because it was combining both my sides.’
And she could see the terrible damage the war had caused.
‘The landscapes were very empty, lots of burn damage, house after house…’
Lala continued to visit Kosovo regularly and much of her work as an artist and photographer was influenced by how it was recovering from the war.
‘It was just this pulling away of two people…’
At first she found that people were just very glad that the war was over.
‘They feel glad they are alive, they not worried, just pleased…’
And people were working together to rebuild Kosovo but in her later visits, Lala did notice some changes.
‘I was warned already that people wouldn’t be so optimistic. Soon they forget the hardships…and they are moving on to the new worries…’
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