Our time in Bucharest

With the support of the European Cultural Foundation and its mobility programme Step Beyond, we travelled to Bucharest (Romania) in December 2008 to develop our first cultural project together.

Our main purpose was to draw a bridge between Bucharest and Madrid through an artistic and cultural approach. Despite being one of the biggest communities of foreigners, its culture is not known within our home city.

In order to set a base in the mutual understanding, we decided to analyse the new Romanian culture in two different ways: first by understanding the current situation in Bucharest and finally setting a comparison up between the Romanian artists working in their own country and the ones who emigrated to Spain.

We planned, therefore, to interview some artists in Bucharest about the current state of Romanian contemporary art and also to visit the cultural highlights of the city.

First of all, we arranged an appointment with Iosif Kiraly, one of the founders of the Photography and Time Based Media Arts Department in the National University of Arts in Bucharest. Besides teaching, he is also an artist and a member of the collaborative project subREAL.

After reading about his work on-line, we were willing to meet him, visit his studio and enjoy his photography creation at first hand. It was fascinating to chat with him and see how different visual artists approach the relation between perception, time and memory. Moreover, his research concerning the changes that shake the actual life and visual environment of the post-communist Romania was much more exciting than we imagined.

During the long conversation, we were able to exchange points of view not only about the topics we had been previously working in, but also about his own artistic creation. Such production is a great reflection of the main influences and current topics in contemporary photography in Romania.

Our next meeting place was the National Museum of Contemporary Art (MNAC), located in a new glass wing of the monumental Palace of Parliament, Europe’s largest building. There we interviewed Cosmin Tapu, responsible for the Communication and Fundraising Department.

Although its controversial new location, MNAC is thought as an opportunity for advancement of Romanian contemporary art on the international scene. In the current European context, it may be expected to become one of the most important institutions of this type in Eastern Europe, due to the increasing interest in contemporary art within young generations.

Even though the museum has been recently refurbished, its wide open halls are so huge that most of the exhibition space is unutilised. It is astonishing that the extensive local contemporary art collection owned by the MNAC is not exhibited there.

In addition to it, we realised that the MNAC budget is heavily dependent on government funds. Such economic dependence not only influences the cultural programme in the mid/long-term, but also the acquisition policy and the main management decisions.

Thirdly, we met Anca Benera, one of the most active young visual artists in the country. She co-runs the Centre for Visual Instropection, an independent institution for research, artistic and theoretical production.

It was very interesting and useful to know about the day-a-day running of the foundation, as well as the activities programme designed. Besides her co-manager role, she is also an individual artist. We do enjoyed her work, particularly her projects named as ‘Collecting collectors’, ‘Art sickness bag’ and ‘Network’, a contemporary art in the public space in Bucharest. They all are unique, original and innovative.

Apart from all those arranged interviews, we visited both the Muzeul National Al Satalui and the Muzeul Taranului Român, as contemporary Romanian culture is said to be deeply rooted in ethnicity and tradition. Finally, we enjoyed the interesting exhibition of local visual artist Dan Perjovschi in Galleria Posibila. His works mix art, society and politics through critical drawing, cartoon and graffiti.

To sum up, all I can say is that the trip to Bucharest exceeded my expectations in all senses. Thank you very much to the European Cultural Foundation for giving us the opportunity of being awarded. It has been an unforgettable experience. We do recommend to everybody involved in cultural and artistic professional area to apply for it.

Presentación del Proyecto

Este blog pretende ser un cuaderno de bitácora del Proyecto Cultural "From Bucuresti to Madrid through Culture", creado por Ana Astorga y Ángel de Frutos. Para ello, hemos contado con el apoyo de la European Cultural Foudation, fundación holandesa que subvenciona viajes de intercambio cultural entre la Europa del Este y la otra orilla del continente.En este primer post, queremos presentaros en qué consiste el proyecto y cómo va a desarrollarse en los futuros meses, y a través de este blog esperamos ir relatando los avances que llevemos a cabo.

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This blog is meant to be an “on-board diary” for the Cultural Project “From Bucuresti to Madrid through Culture”, by Ana Astorga and Ángel de Frutos.We count on the help of the European Cultural Foudation, which supports cultural exchanges from one side of the continent to the other. In this first post, we’d like to introduce the aims of the Project and how we will develope it within the next months. Through this blog we also expect to tell you about all the “steps beyond” we’ll be taking!

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_FROM BUCURESTI TO MADRID THROUGH CULTURE
a project about today’s Romanian art

_Romanian is one of the biggest communities of immigrants in Spain (more than 600.000 in 2007, according to the Spanish National Statistics Institute, INE), and especially in the city where we both live, Madrid. Romanian is also a latin-rooted culture, with a Latin language even though many other influences came after Romans. Romania is now part of the European Union... Considering all this data, one could think that Spaniards and Romanians are quite next to each other, but that is not the real situation in the daily life of a Spanish city.

Through this project we would like to draw a bridge between both countries, not only between Romanian and Spanish citizens, but also by approaching Romanian artists working in their own country to the reality of some of their colleagues who tried to look for a better future in a different place.

We try to analyse the new Romanian culture in two different ways: first by understanding the current situation in Romania and finally setting a comparison up between the Romanian artists working in their own country and the ones who emigrated to Spain. We consider culture as the best way of approaching to each other, and the goal of this project is to set a base in the understanding of our two different cultures by both sides.

In order to do that, we have been studying about Romanian culture and we are now ready to explore it in different ways, first in Bucharest, where we will meet our partners (artists and cultural operators), not only for asking them about their work and the topic we suggest, but also to know their cultural institutions and foundations. We will also immerse ourselves in the main cultural spots of the city to complete our background; and then in Madrid, where we will meet some other partners to know their work and projects far away from their country, under the Spanish influence. The dates for our visit to Bucharest, according to our partners are: from December 8th to the 12th, 2008.

We plan to create a bi-lateral forum in which artists and cultural operators from both sides could share opinions, thoughts, ideas and projects through a blog that we will start running before our trip to Romania, so that we can also use it as an “on-board diary”.

We basically expect, on the one hand to learn about Romanian contemporary culture, a very ethnical and traditional culture in which young artists are specially active nowadays; and on the other hand to be able to cooperate with the Institure for Romanian Culture in Madrid to make their activities more popular among the Spanish public.