Listen here to episode 5
Her interest in art
My path has been winding. I wanted to make art ever since my teenage year, but I didn’t know where to start and what exactly I wanted to communicate, what were the things I was interested in. The “formula” was, for me, the choice to do something else for a while, so I enrolled in a Philosophy and Literature university. I thought if I threw myself in these areas, I would find what I had been looking for. The paradox was that, by the time I dove in, the more I read, the more I became estranged from things of external nature, turning inwards instead.
The role of academic studies and belonging to a community
Communities are important because you can exchange ideas with other artists – about studio work or about the messages of artworks, because artists often ask themselves if what makes sense to them makes sense to others / the audience.
Once I decided that what I wanted to communicate was very close to me, I enrolled in an Art University context. I went back to Bucharest and for a few years, I went to the Photography Department at UNArte. I say photography, because this is the medium I connected with the most out of all study fields. Photography is a very intuitive medium, but at the same time, it’s not a medium that requires a lot of craft. It’s a medium that you can connect with quite quickly.
The artwork in the exhibition Back To Where It All Began
My photography is object-oriented. I haven’t been interested in portrait or landscape and my objects are generally ordinary and cold at the first sight. They are bricks, blocks of metal, or deserted houses. But they are objects that very often hide vulnerability and fragility, which become symbols.
I often photograph such objects then I connected them in books (my series of photographs are compiled in books). So, it was natural for me to start get to the object itself, the sculpture which is presented at Gaep, Back To Where It All began exhibition.
It was a paradox. I was expecting to be uncomfortable, but the moment I got from drawing to the actual object, I realized how much joy there actually is in physically working with your hands.
In photography there’s a relationship between the moment you observe and the moment you get to the dark room where magic happens. I didn’t expect this to happen when working with tangible material. I’d say the magic has stayed the same, it’s just that the journey – or the magic involves a different time.
The exhibition Back To Where It All Began
Diversity is the first thing I would mention from an audience perspective – how young artists approach things formally and how different they are, yet in diversity – there are common points: from a playful approach to social issues, or references to an emotional space.
Being an artist in Romania
I think being an artist in Romania, and in particular, I would say, emerging artist, pre-emerging artist, because there is a beautiful saying in English – “to deep your finger” – when you are just testing the water – I think I am at a point where I am just testing the water, I am just slowly starting to immerse myself in what it means to be an artist in Romania. I’d start with a positive – it’s a privilege to be an artist, whether it’s in our country or anywhere else. Pavel Braila was talking in one of the podcast episodes about freedom. And no matter where you are in your career, it’s a privilege. However, there is sometimes the feeling that you are a character from Don Quixote or almost the myth of Sisyphus, because there are many variables and issues, generally of a material nature, unfortunately.
About Accelerator
Start-ups are always important. I felt that in the mentorship program I was given the tools I didn’t have to manage this beginning of the journey that is perhaps key regardless of the type of practice. The mentorship – and the dialogue among us – made us realize and appreciate what we do and how much it means to us. So, mentoring has brought both elements of strategy and a dialogue between people, who are in the same context and more established people, who are in a different stage, who have been, for years, doing art. They have passed on to us their experiences and empathy with regards to where we are now.
Future projects
I would say that for me, in the other half of 2023, on the one hand, the last stage of the mentorship programme, art in the public space, is very important. I would add another project very dear to me – I have been preparing for almost 2 years. It’s a combination between an art project and artistic research about marble workshops and what happens to marble remains.
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We invite you to also listen to our previous podcasts: here – the podcast with Þorlákur Einarsson, here there is the dialogue with Tevž Logar, curator of Back to Where It All Began exhibition, here the talk with artist Pavel Brăila and here the first episode which presents an overview of Accelerator program.
The aim of Accelerator Today is to share inspiring talks about contemporary art and connect audiences with artists (those in the program and guests as well), curators, cultural managers and project partners.
The following stage of Accelerator. Mentoring and Production for Emerging Artists programme is public art, to start soon, during summer.