This is an important year for Romania, which holds the Presidency of the European Union during the first semester, and during the second half, will also be the focal point of the biannual Europalia Arts Festival.
And for a long time, Romania has been a land for artistic creation which has greatly been able to forge Europe’s cultural imaginary. From Brâncuși to Tzara or Brătescu, it has offered the world numerous artists who have largely contributed to the most avant-garde movements of our continent. At the crossroads between tradition and modernity, urbanity and rurality, today’s Romania is a breeding ground of inspiration for emerging artists from other countries.
It is with this spirit Cluj Cultural Centre and National Museum of Contemporary Art (MNAC) partnered up with BOZAR to gather in Bucharest and Cluj ten artists from Belgium and Romania between May 24th and 29th. During visits, encounters and cross talks, artists will address questions that are central for their practices and how Romania can become a laboratory, an open workshop for active reflection.
This project is a critical counter-narrative to change stereotypes that the East always come to the West, and not the contrary. It proposes a laboratory to show that the opposite can also happen and help find new inspirations from Romanian talents. It also highlights how nature and modernity can interact for better or for worse and how the arts can question this relation. The “legacy” of the project will be of utmost importance.
The general focus will be on the development of the artist in space and how creation can find inspiration both in Romanian tradition and contemporaneity. This artistic pilgrimage will be a West-East dialogue between emerging artists from all fields.
In the framework of the Presidency, BOZAR will be celebrating Romania with a whole range of concerts and artistic events with some of the most distinguished Romanian musicians, artists, and authors.
We’re proud to say that Cluj-Napoca has two artists to be represented by: Thea Lazăr & Lucian Indrei.
Thea Lazăr lives and works between Cluj-Napoca, Romania and the internet. She graduated from the University of Art and Design in the same city and studied for a semester in the New Media department at the Academy of Art in Szczecin, Poland. Although her work is digital based, it\’s usually meant to live offline, taking the form of installations, prints or just screens. Since 2016 she\’s been a member of Aici Acolo – an artist-run project focused on promoting young and emerging artists by organizing contemporary art exhibitions in unused or abandoned spaces in Cluj-Napoca.
Lucian Indrei lives and works in Cluj-Napoca. He graduated BA and MA at University of Arts and Design in Cluj, and now preparing his PhD at the same university. He is one of the founding members of Lateral Art Space, a contemporary art space hosted by the Paintbrush Factory in Cluj. He has participated in several collective exhibitions organized by Lateral Art Space (German Kleinformat, 2013, Mulu – Passing By, 2012), and by Victoria Art Center (ESSL Museum Nominee Exhibition, 2013, 2011).
The participating artists are: Carla Swerts, Arjan Vanmeenen, Nadia Guerroui, Meriton Maloku, Camille De Bonhome, Lucian Indrei, Thea Lazăr, Mihai Zgondoiu, Gabriela Mateescu, Lea Rasovszky.
Every day, BOZAR and its partners will post intentions, personal stories and visual fragments of inspiration proposed by artists around this journey. We invite you to follow them on their Instagram account or on our social media channels: Facebook or Instagram.
Photos with Alexandru Chira\’s „De-signs towards the sky for rain and rainbow” – ensemble from Tăușeni, Cluj
