studio ZAJMI


STUDIO ZAJMI (1993–) is a cross-disciplinary editorial, design, archival, and installation studio founded by EBBA ZAJMI. 

Working from a diaspora between the Balkans and the Bronx, the studio is rooted only in Anzaldúa’s nepantla, aiming to be a memory keeper and comrade in collaboration for diasporic storytelling across borders and disciplines. 

Rooted in folkloric traditions of storytelling and the art of diasporic survival, the studio embraces and breaks form to prioritize and share stories from marginal in-between spaces. 

The studio is a space for interdisciplinary practice and memory keeping in diaspora, inspired by the home studio of a paternal grandfather and the writing desk of a maternal grandfather in perpetual migration. 

KONTAKTO



ebba ZAJMI        


BIOGRAFI 



EBBA ZAJMI was born in Tirana to an interfaith family with roots in Peja, Kosovo and the Mirdita region of Albania. They were raised in the diaspora communities of Belmont, on the Lenape lands of the Bronx. 

ZAJMI is an interdisciplinary writer, editor, and visual artist. They are a humble educator, sometimes designer, casual trans-interpretative consultant, and aspiring born-again painter.



Their creative practice deconstructs and reimagines the family home as a bodymind, intergenerational patternmaking in failing surveillance states, erasure and revision within national archives and landscapes, object sculptures as memory keepers, and diasporic soundscapes.  

ZAJMI’s work has been featured in various events at Bulevard Art and Media Institute, in the Ouroboros show at Essex Flowers Gallery, in the Baklava and Beats show at the Aperture Foundation, and more.

Their work has been published in Ouroboros and Blindspotting by Image Text Ithaca Press, No, Dear Magazine, O Gocë, Porridge Magazine, and others. Zajmi completed an apprenticeship with the Feminist Press and an internship with Ugly Duckling Presse, where they supported editorial, copyedit, design, and community engagement work. 

EBBA ZAJMI holds a BA with Honors in English Literature from Lehman College and an MFA in Image Text from the program formerly hosted at Ithaca College, now at Cornell University. They were accepted into and completed the 2021 Creative Publishing Seminar at the Center for Book Arts as well as an advanced nonfiction course at Sackett Street with Cinelle Barnes in 2023. 

ZAJMI works in the US and abroad as an interdisciplinary educator and is a Writing MFA candidate in Creative Nonfiction at Sarah Lawrence College.


DHE VETEN NDERO

MATERIALE TË PËRZGJEDHURA    


BLINDSPOTTINGDOUBLE SIDED BROADSIDE PUBLICATION
ONE IN A SET OF THREE BROADSIDES
BY IMAGE TEXT ITHACA PRESS

EDITED WITH TONYA FOSTER
PRINTED BY GRAFICHE VENEZIANE
LAUNCHED AT PRINTED MATTER NYC
FALL 2022 | ACROSS BORDERS

Blindspotting is a double-sided broadside publication, one in a set of three collaborative broadsides. Blindspotting was a collaborative work between Ebba Zajmi*, Nan Heyneman, and Rob Contreras II.

The publication, and the set of three broadsides, was designed by Elana Schlenker. They launched at the Printed Matter Art Book Fair in New York City in October 2022 after being printed in Venezia, Italy.

* = PUBLICATION CREDIT APPEARS UNDER AN ALTERNATE NAME

A RESERVOIR OF CARE, LOVE, REBELLION AT BULEVARD ART & MEDIA INSTITUTE
WITH VALENTINA BONIZZI & SILVI NAÇI
19 MAJ 2025 | TIRANA, ALBANIA

A Reservoir of Care, Love, Rebellion is a proposal for commons shared between local and diasporic communities through art, activism, and the archive. 

This is the fourth edition, curated by Valentina Bonizzi and Silvi Naçi, organized and produced by Bulevard Art & Media Institute in partnership with Aleanca LGBTQI, Homespace, and Sekhmet Institute.


For this group show in the city of their birth, Zajmi contributed Futuring: An American Triptych.

The work is a set of three still-life images of living documents in which the artist is working with memory materials and ephemera collected from a migration story starting in August of 2000. The work was made while contending with the mythologies and failures of both state and family.

After building and living with an altar dedicated to the objects that tracked Zajmi’s family in diaspora–from immigration documents in Ziploc bags to severed hair and Turkish coffee cups–the artist wrapped the altar and put it away between 2022 and 2024. In 2024, the altar was unraveled and dismantled, allowing the artist to rearrange and re-envision what they call the “memory keepers” of their family’s American dream.

A private artist talk and discussion called “Looking For Signs, Living With Images” was held with Aleanca LGBTQI before the exhibition.

WRITING THE IMAGEWORKSHOP BY EBBA ZAJMI
AN INDEPENDENT BOOK FAIR
AT BULEVARD ART AND MEDIA INSTITUTE
30 NOVEMBER 2024 | TIRANA, ALBANIA

Writing the Image was offered to international and multilingual participants during An Independent Book Fair in 2024.


This ekphrastic writing workshop welcomed writers and visual artists alike. Participants were invited to write with, alongside, against, inside, or around images from their working portfolio or personal archives.
The particular history of the Albanian photograph was an inspiration in the planning of this workshop. Both the Marubi archives (an incredible multi-generational archive of Albanian photographs) and Hoxha’s habits of erasure acted as primary points of center. 

What happened in the room, thanks to the presence of participants from different backgrounds, activated conversations around how we relate to images and histories of image-making that span across cultures, disciplines, and political histories.
ZHGARRAVINA (SCRIBBLE)WORKSHOP BY EBBA ZAJMI
FOR ABETARE (NOISY CLASSROOM)
EXHIBITED WORK BY PETRIT HALILAJ
PROGRAMMING CURATED BY ERIOLA PIRA
AT KURIMANZUTTO GALLERY IN CHELSEA
19 OCTOBER 2024 | NEW YORK CITY

Zhgarravina (Scribble) was the third and final workshop of programming linked to Petrit Hahlilaj’s Abetare (Noisy Classroom) at kurimanzutto Gallery, the sister exhibition to his 2024 Met Rooftop Commission.

The programming for the Chelsea exhibition at kurimanzutto was curated by Eriola Pira of The Vera List Center for Art and Politics.


In this interdisciplinary workshop, Zajmi invited participants to engage in mark-making, starting with an in-depth look at the scribbles in the work on view in the gallery.

From identifying and naming figures, words, and marks on the school desks to the sculptures Petrit Halilaj extracted from them, participants were guided through making their marks and creating collectively authored broadsheets.

Though Zajmi shares a Kosovar ancestry with the artist, it is a generation or two removed, meaning their parents and grandparents were direct subjects of the Hoxha regime. During that regime, the broadside was specifically encouraged as a state-sponsored tactic of social surveillance and shame, carried out by civilians in various neighborhoods. 

Zajmi wanted to engage that complex political history with the ancient human urge towards mark-making and the idea of publishing as a public good. They invited participants—who were a mixture of Albanian and non-Albanian speakers—to subvert that history and make collectively authored broadsides linked to memory, language, childlike imagination, joy, and play.
A BIRD’S NECK FOR LUNCH MULTIDISCIPLINARY PUBLICATION
IMAGES & TEXT BY ANGEL HUBRIS
EDITORIAL & DESIGN BY EBBA ZAJMI
PRINTED IN PHILADELPHIA
LAUNCHED IN TIRANA, ALBANIA
28 NOVEMBER 2024 |  ACROSS BORDERS

A Bird’s Neck for Lunch by Angel Hubris is a horror story and a homecoming in book form, with writing and images by Angel Hubris–our author and narrator.


Previously edited with Ebba Zajmi for the story’s premier as an audio performance on Montez Press Radio, this new rendition comes back to the author’s homeland of Albania in print form.

Angel Hubris ponders prey and prayer, capital and cruelty and country, homecoming and horror, ritual and remains, bells and burial.

This work was launched at An Independent Book Fair (with 28 November and Bulevard Art and Media Institute) in Tirana, Albania in 2024.

You can purchase your copy from the author here.
FIELDS BY DATA 91 EDITORIAL DESIGN BY STUDIO ZAJMI
02 DECEMBER 2024 | NEW YORK CITY

Fields is the third studio album Data 91. The album is a larger interdisciplinary work featuring sound, video, and text.  


The Bronx duo’s latest work is an ambient album accompanied by an image-text booklet that shares its name, available with the album through Bandcamp. 

Ingredients: liner notes, recycled images, plenty of time to ruminate. Curated by Studio Zajmi for your reading and viewing pleasure.

OUROBOROS COLLABORATIVE PRINT PUBLICATION
& GROUP EXHIBITION
AT ESSEX FLOWERS GALLERY
BY IMAGE TEXT ITHACA PRESS
CURATED & DESIGNED BY PAUL SOULELLIS
SUMMER & FALL 2022 | NEW YORK CITY

Featured Artists: Ebba Zajmi*, Saxon Baird, Raegan Bird, Cinthya Santos Briones, Robert Contreras II, Nan Heyneman, Kole Kovacs, Jared Lindahl, Hyacinth Schukis, Dale Small, and John Smieska. 

* = PUBLICATION CREDIT APPEARS UNDER AN ALTERNATE NAME


Ouroboros is collaborative publication that opens on both sides and was designed with Paul Soulellis, founder of Queer.Archive.Work and Head of Graphic Design at RISD. The publication formally launched at the Printed Matter Art Book Fair in New York City in October 2022. 

Soulellis also curated the group show, an accompanying exhibition and manifestation of the artists’ work in installation form, at Essex Flowers Gallery with the artists in August of 2022. The exhibition featured a reading series during its run.

Fed on pattern, inheritance, transformation and the inexpressible, the snake eats itself. The beginning is the end is the beginning. Suggested usage: four drops daily. A sensation of warmth is normal.
ALBANIAN IMAGE-TEXT POSTCARD SERIESLIMITED EDITION STUDIO ZAJMI
FOR AN INDEPENDENT BOOKFAIR IN TIRANA
NOVEMBER 2024 | TIRANA, ALBANIA

These image-text postcards were printed specifically for the 2024 independent book fair in Tirana.

Limited copies remain, but please contact us if you are interested. You can purchase a single postcard for $5.00 USD, or a set of any three (while supplies last) for $13.00. Free shipping anywhere in the US.


These postcards feature photography by Ebba Zajmi on the front, with text by Ebba Zajmi wrapped around the frame of the back side, allowing for space to be used as intended–for mailing to loved ones!

Postcard 001 features a coffee reading ritual on the front with excerpted text from “The Fortune Teller,” fully published in Sisters (DDRC), on the back. 

Postcard 002 features a night cemetery photo from Berlin, 2021, with the unpublished poem “Call It a Birthday” on the back. 

Postcard 003 features a photograph of a man riding a bicycle on Rruga e Kavajës in Tirana, one of the oldest streets in the city. The surrounding landscape’s mountains, mostly visible only decades ago, are blocked by large buildings. The back features an excerpt from the poem, “Nan’ Tiranë,” previously published in full by Oranbeg Press. 
THE FORTUNE TELLERIN VOLUME FIVE: SISTERS
BY DADA DUENDE RECORD CLUB
FALL 2024 | INTERNATIONAL

DDRC Volume Five: Sisters features work by various artists including Ebba Zajmi, Cinthya Santos Briones, Dawn Yow, and Cornell Watson. The cover design was done by Letra Muerta Inc. in Brooklyn, and this issue was co-curated by Faride Mereb.

For Sisters, Ebba Zajmi contributes a series of object collages alongside a lyric essay called “The Fortune Teller.” The two works are in conversation with each other, centered on the ritual of fortune telling in diaspora and how a folk practice of divination leads to a fragile future in diaspora.

These interventions into the family archive intertwine with the divination rituals that shaped, intersected with, and sometimes plagued the artist’s childhood–an experience only shared with, remembered with, and understood by the artist’s sibling–a sister. 

POETRY PUBLICATIONSBefore pursuing nonfiction writing, editorial work, and bookmaking, Zajmi had a decades-long poetry practice. Some of that published work exists under various names in publications such as:

No, Dear (Brooklyn, New York)
Porridge Magazine (London, England)
O Gocë (London by way of Albania & Kosovo)
Oranbeg Press (Boston & Brooklyn)


For No, Dear’s Diaspora issue, Ebba Zajmi* contributed the opening poem, “Homelands.” 

In Porridge Magazine’s second print issue, Zajmi* contributed a poem called “In Dreams, We Meet.”

For O Gocë’s second print issue, Zajmi* contributed a mixed media collage and opening poem.

And in an online series called etc. by Oranbeg Press, Zajmi* contributed “Nan’ Tiranë” for Fade / Fail / Flow.

* = PUBLICATION CREDIT APPEARS UNDER AN ALTERNATE NAME


© studio ZAJMI
1993–