Performance

MOnuMENTS project in conjuction with The Travellers Box project

Curators Lars Vilhelmsen, Karen Ay, London UK (go to MOnuMENTS in conjuction with the travellers box )

On 15^th of April focAr group set off together with Travellers Box for the second time. The event took place in the very heart of London and consisted in a performance-journey. The action documented monuments located on the National Gallery – House of Parliament route. These monuments commemorate the heroes from wars or representative personalities for British space. The two members of the group placed a flower bouquet at each monument and held a silent moment in the heroes’ memory.

more details: here

View MOnuMENTS project in conjunction with The Travellers Box Project, Curators Lars Vilhelmsen, Karen Ay, London UK in a larger map

MOnuMENTS project in conjuction with The Travellers Box project

MOnuMENTS project

“MOnuMENTS” is a natural, organic response from the artists to all these mutations and reconfigurations of the present time. The immediate result is the documentation of the diversity as a mixture between the urban and rural development, between cultural gestures and collective and individual gestures.

The mission of the project is a “work in progress” nature, which means ongoing working possibilities, means associations, changes and social dynamics. We are dealing with cultural gestures as well as individual or collective gestures, in between different representations but using similar techniques. “MOnuMENTS” presents the reality through the enticement of gesture, cultural and imagistic quotes which get filter and interpreted, and the balance in between metaphorical and abstract.

more details: here

View MOnuMENTS project by focAR group - Romania in a larger map

MOnuMENTS project

Red Spot

RED SPOT is a finger pointing to several problems in the city: buildings, streets, neighbourhoods, in a Bucharest that was little Paris sometimes, now is a city buried under cars, dust, resentments (is it a young European city?), a cultural capital in the future or a chaotic commercial, consumerism city?

Project RED SPOT has proposed to point out to those places which are abandoned. The city centre is such area, and it is forgotten for too long. There are lots of streets fading away in front our eyes meanwhile with listed buildings even, which are very numerous and enhance scruffy and gray atmosphere of Bucharest.

more details: here

Red Spot (2008)

Red Spot

Agenda – project

May First celebrations are held everywhere in the world for well over a century now and the diverse significance attached to this date tend to somehow blur on the canvas of a multitude of causes that people congregate around recently.

The origins of these celebrations are easily lost in an immemorial past. Whether it was the night of the Walpurgis in the german countries or the celtic festivals of Beltane (the ancient celtic word for „May”) or countless other popular celebration rites from different areas of Europe, May First was a major pagan celebration. These traditions were recovered by Christianity and integrated in the symbolic patrimony which is visible even nowadays.

May First celebrations in the modern times are inherently connected with the emancipation of the workers and unions forces at the end of the XIX-th century, namely the union street protests from United States and Europe for the „eight hour day” (that success is widely considered as the first step in the emancipation of the proletarian conscience). May First was universally declared the International Workers’ Day at the beginning of XX-th century, being celebrated today in over 100 countries all over the world.

May First is one of the most important days in a year when a plurality of ideological, political, ecological, etc. discourses are signaled through major street demonstrations in cities around the world: different socialist, communist, anarchist groups demonstrate on May First, remembering the predecessor’s fight while signaling pressing contemporary social issues. Many of these demonstrations have in common the impugnment of the capitalist system.

The worker, the man who is working is the central figure of this day. The long story of May First celebrations is marked by the evolution from a pagan celebration of spring and nature to the dynamic, protesting affirmation of the working man’s identity – a long evolution which underlines the dichotomy between the ancient and mythical celebration of the nature’s forces / modern celebration of human forces. The method of celebration remained common – dynamic, sometimes violent, anarchical.

more details: here

Agenda project

Agenda

Urban Traces

The project “Urban Traces” was born from the same urban environment – in cities like Bucharest, Iasi, Cluj, it has been focused on subjects such as the urban and noise pollution and as a final point, global warming. This project was started one year ago and it has populated since conventional spaces (art galleries, museums) as well as some unconventional ones (apartment, phone box, the underground, shops).

more details: here

Urban Traces (2007)

ASEZareaTRECereaCERCul

Opposed to the urban projects, the project ASEZareaTRECereaCERCul was created, which helped us pinpoint another type of identity – a lost identity which speaks about the returning of the urban individual to nature. During the same HUMAn international symposium we had an installation-act in the Cucuteni village called VERDE. This was a “question” asked to the inhabitants of the village, regarding the global warming effect towards the Urban and the Rural.

more details: here

TRECereaASEZareaCERCul project

RED SPOT (NAG#2)

In 2008, the Red Spot project was part of the Programme of public art I love Bucharest, part of the European Year for Intercultural Dialogue, which was supported by ProHelvetia through United Experts. It is an art gesture constructed as a signal-project, a project meant to warn the people of Bucharest –inhabitants and authorities, individuals and private companies – and it had as objectives: a building, a street or a monument. (The white Night of galleries 2008 – Studio in Transition gallery)

more details: here

The white night of galleries (2008)

Curier project

Proiect pilot realizat in cadrul evenimentului Street Delivery, Bucuresti, 2007

Un oras fara oameni este doar peisaj.Devreme ce nivelul de urbanizare al orasului Bucuresti este in indiscutabila crestere, ramane ca gradul de umanizare sa-l ridice pe scara valorilor umane..Ma apropie si ma desparte , in egala masura, de celalalt – anonimul , un oras Bucuresti. De cele mai multe ori, acest celalat ramane suspendat in paginile care se rescriu in fiecare an in cartea de telefoane.In aceste circumstante propun un exercitiu de comunicare libera intr-un mod traditional, prin scrisori. Este chiar mai mult decat atat – este un gest de curaj stiind ca, desi nu scriem, in modul acesta, prea des – , am senzatia ca orice om ce participa se asemana cu un atlas care poarta in spate privirea universului. Este o metoda mai putin conventionala de o incepe un dialog – anonimatul celui care scrie este caracteristica libertatii de expresie, conditia fiind insa ca asocierea libera pe marginea subiectului discutat – orasul Bucuresti , sa insemne responsabilitatea de fapt pe care o avem fata de celalat, anonim catre anonim.Proiectul acesta este un proiect de arta publica , aparut in cadrul evenimentului Traseul Cultural str. Verona, eveniment de cultura urbana / Street Delivery, 1-3 iunie 2007 cand strada a fost inchisa pentru masini si deschisa pentru oameni si este dezvoltat cu sprijinul artistilor din programul I Love Bucharest.Corespondenta va fi facuta cu ajutorul Galeriei Grigore Mora, a carei adresa este Str. Grigore Mora, nr.39, Bucuresti.(proiect realizat impreuna cu arh. Adriana Mereuta)

more details: here

Curier project (2007)

EXIST (Phone BOX project 2008)

The windows of the call box are usually broken. And yet there are extreme situations when individuals need this call box and make phone calls. People pass indifferently by it. No one sees it no one asks any questions about it. It is sometimes used as a shelter against rain.
We bring into discussion the urban and rural identity through the call box. We will express our thoughts confusion and feelings in relation with the society with the concrete, the grass, the tree, the park, the boulevard, the street. In this way the individual is invited to participate, to look for a position, an attitude so that he may launch a social gesture.

more details: here