Fabrica de Pensule
Fabrica de Pensule is the first collective project of such dimensions on the Romanian cultural scene and also one of the most relevant examples of converting an industrial building into a cultural space.
The artists, galleries and organizations – active in the fields of theater, contemporary dance, visual arts, arts in public space, music – are jointly engaged into delivering relevant cultural content, both for the artistic community and the wide audience. Besides artist studios and production spaces, Fabrica de Pensule also hosts events of local and international partners. It acts as a major player in cultural and urban policies in the Romanian context.
PROJECTS IN WHICH I PARTICIPATE
AMAIA MOLINET
THE SPRING I LOST / THE LACK OF TOUCH
This project arises from different visual and formal exercises between desired stimuli during the confinement period of 2020. It consists mainly of different photographic series of a not excessively obvious personal reading of the impact of the pandemic on myself. This first part, of a rather visual character, will be exhibited during the first fortnight of September there in Cluj-Napoca. While the second part is presented as an extension of a more verbal character, paying attention to both the plasticity and the phonetics of the word, in addition to experimenting with meanings and etymologies. Both apparently different parts are closely related as they are elements with which to interpret the personal impact of more than a year of pandemic.
I carry out my work from photography as an extended field; to be precise, my main interest comes from the photographic practice in the face of the problematic of territoriality as a sign of identity. I connect notions such as frontiers, memory, architecture, or territory from a complex and personal sense of the landscape as a cultural, political, and even social construction. Some of my projects, which are purely focused on photography, are aimed at presenting images from a phenomenological approach and with some purpose of criticism. Therefore, their aesthetic features make it possible to understand an implicit political component in their construction. Yet, beyond this aesthetic and even technical motivation, I understand our current artistic practices as some sort of life experience and thinking. I develop my artistic work as a study of the environment, understood as a framework for identitary influence, by using symbolism and connotation as artistic tools to get to know our reality from both an affective and perceptive point of view. I do believe in the importance of performative actions captured through photography and video, as a way of creating close bonds between myself and the environment, and finding a balance within the controversial nature of working on a given and demarcated territory. Then I also pay attention to the elements I display my works with, in the process of a sensitive reconstruction of the experience lived on the ground, to reterritorialize it into physical supports.
Photos: Roland Vaczi
ALINA ANDREI
YOU KNOW ALL THESE PEOPLE
I have taken photographs of people from Spain and France, more specifically from the Basque border between the two countries and also from a multi-ethnic city in Romania, passers-by and others I know. They spoke Basque, Spanish, French, Romanian, Hungarian, Russian, Italian, Portuguese, German, English and more languages that I can't remember now.
I mixed them up, so it's practically impossible to know where they come from. And yet, when you look at these paper people, they look familiar even if you have never met them, even if you have never seen their faces.
A gesture may remind you of a schoolmate, a purple coat of an aunt you can't stand, an older man of the silent neighbour walking his dog in front of your house, a young woman in jeans, you get a sense of deja vu of the good (or the bad) that you can't really explain. They are all different from each other and at the same time similar. Remember that the next time you are invited to hate other people (whoever they are).
I thought of the toys that hang in children's cots: toys to banish boredom and fear of loneliness/darkness. Obviously, it is a symbolic representation for adults, a false talisman that cannot protect you from any nightmare or unadorned real life. These installations also refer to the mobile installations of Alexander Calder and Bruno Munari.
Alina Andrei
CALLS IN WHICH PARTICIPATES
IMPEX 2.0
NAZIOARTEKO ARTE EGONALDIA
BITAMINE FAKTORIA - FABRICA DE PENSULE
1. EDIZIOA
Fabrica de pensule arte garaikideko guneak deialdiaren bigarren edizioa antolatzen du, artista emakumeen artean trukeak sustatzeko xedez. Oraingoan, Bitamine Faktoria mugaz gaindiko sormen eta kultur ekoizpen fabrikarekin egingo du lan. Deialdiaren helburua hauxe da Euskal Autonomia Erkidegoko artista batek egonaldia eta emaitzen aurkezpena egiteko esparru kritikoa sortzea, Cluj-Napoca hirian (Errumania). EAEn bizi diren eta Errumaniako hirian, Fabrica de Pensule arte gunean, egonaldia egin nahi duten artista emakumeei zuzenduta dago. Programaren interesa tokiko komunitate artistikoa nazioartekotzeko esparru egokia sortzean eta bi agertokitan trukean egitean datza; izan ere, artista errumaniar batek Euskadi bisitatuko baitu esperientzia bera Bidasoa eskualdean egiteko (Errumanian bertan bi artistak harremanetan jarri dira).
EPEMUGA
2021eko maiatzaren 31a
*Argazkia: IMPEX 1.0, Maria Brudașcă’s artwork, Residency at motoco&co in Mulhouse, FR, 2019.