Traces of the Lost Bazaar of Shkodër and an Albanian Family Legacy in Budapest

Thanks to the curators of the Museum of Ethnography in Budapest, descendants of an Albanian silversmithing family have rediscovered their heritage in the museum’s collection—now made accessible to the public in Shkodër. As a result of a new collaboration between the Budapest-based museum and the Marubi National Museum of Photography, the exhibition The Lost Bazaar of Shkodër: Reviving a Memory opens on 18 July 2025 in Shkodër. For the first time, it will present to the public objects and stories once tied to the famed bazaar of Shkodër. The exhibition not only showcases the region’s craft traditions and visual heritage but also connects past and present through a personal family narrative—from Budapest to Shkodër.

In recent years, while researching its Balkan collections, the Museum of Ethnography turned its attention to a set of approximately 300 objects acquired in 1911 and 1912 from Paolo Lazza, also known by his Albanian name, Palok Laca—a merchant from what was then Scutari (modern-day Shkodër). Comprising mainly Albanian jewellery and traditional textiles, the collection once reflected the world of the Old Bazaar, the largest in the Balkans. Despite its historical and aesthetic value, the collection remained largely silent, as it lacked proper documentation at the time of acquisition and was transferred to the museum’s new storage facilities without its original context.

One of the museum’s key commitments is to redress such gaps and reconnect its holdings with their source communities. In September 2024, curators Vera Schleicher and Boglárka Mácsai travelled to Albania to trace the background of the collection in Shkodër and Tirana. They were assisted by Luçjan Bedeni, Director of the Marubi National Museum of Photography, who helped them get in touch with the descendants of Palok Laca. The researchers met his grandson, Tonin Laca, and great-grandchildren: the internationally acclaimed stylist Jozef Martini, who lives in Italy, and musician Kole Laca, a member of the Shkodra Elektronike collective—which represented Albania at the Eurovision Song Contest in 2025.

This rediscovery of family memory and museum research has also shed new light on Palok Laca himself: he was a silversmith who regularly travelled the Adriatic coast in the early 20th century to sell goods and acquire traditional garments. One such journey brought him to Budapest in 1911, where he sold a significant number of Albanian artefacts to the Ethnographic Department of the Hungarian National Museum.

The convergence of personal history and material heritage now culminates in an international exhibition. From 18 July to 21 September 2025, The Lost Bazaar of Shkodër: Reviving a Memory will be on view at the Marubi National Museum of Photography. The aim is to restore the memory of the once-vibrant but now vanished Grand Bazaar of Shkodër to the collective consciousness through photographs, objects, films and sound recordings.

One of the exhibition’s chapters is dedicated to the Palok Laca family and the objects preserved in the collection of the Museum of Ethnography in Budapest. Twenty selected items—mainly jewellery and traditional garments—will be loaned to the exhibition and complemented by new works from Dutch curator Kim Knoppers and designer Jozef Martini. Inspired by a red japanxhe jacket from the museum’s holdings, Martini—whose work includes designs for Tommy Hilfiger and Kenzo—has created a new silk scarf that has since been acquired by the museum’s collection.

The atmosphere of the exhibition will be further enriched by the music of Shkodra Elektronike, who will perform at the festive opening. A defining feature of the exhibition is its ability to bridge past and present, tradition and modernity, through the lens of contemporary artistic expression.

The exhibition opens in Shkodër but is also expected to be shown in Budapest, at the Museum of Ethnography—bringing the collection back to the public more than a century later, not just as artefacts, but as a living story.