Gerdi Papa, architect, product designer, researcher, and professor, serves as Head of the Department of Creative Industries at Barleti University in Tirana, Albania, and is a BIG SEE Nominator. He shares his reflection on our 2026 festival theme “Too much? What is just enough?”.
“What is just enough?” is not about subtraction and it’s certainly not about style. It’s about understanding that what we’re trying to say has reached a point of clarity.
“Too much” is rarely a deliberate choice. More often, it is the result of hesitation, the inability to let something stand on its own. We add to it, we adjust it, we layer it, we explain it. Sometimes because we care too much, sometimes because we fear that it may not be quite enough.
“What is just enough?” is not about subtraction and it’s certainly not about style. It’s about understanding that what we’re trying to say has reached a point of clarity. When effort is no longer visible. When form, meaning, and intention stop competing and begin to support one another.
In a culture that rewards intensity, speed, and constant presence, stopping feels risky. Leaving things unresolved can feel uncomfortable. Yet restraint is not the absence of ambition; it is a form of control. It demands attention, confidence, and responsibility.
“Just enough” is always temporary. It must be found again and again. And it is often recognized not by what is there, but by what was deliberately left out.
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