Life as an exhibition and exhibition as life

12 artists from Bucharest and Berlin have found a special way to make the most on the present pandemic

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Ana-Maria Cononovici, 01.02.2022, 01:15

They are artists from Romania and
Germany and decided to spend some time together during the pandemic as an alternative
to the searching of an artist confined to an isolated space. And when 12
artists spend time together speaking, cooking and working the result cannot be
but an exhibition.

Born out of life
the exhibition itself is an illustration of life as it was felt by the group:
private versus collective, general versus individual, spare time versus working
hours. Curators Catinca Tabacaru and Daniela Palimariu talked to us about the project
and the Staycation exhibition.

Catinca Tăbăcaru: Staycation has been born out of the present pandemic, because we artists,
like everyone else, had to find our own space to relax and be ourselves. We
thought it as a meeting space and didn’t see it as an exhibition at first. It all
started with a symposium we staged in July when six artists from Berlin and six
from Romania got together and jointly with Daniela Palimariu from Sandwich and
Rachel Monosov from CTG Collective we created a situation in which we stayed
together for one week. 12 creative artists, one week together; we lived
together, cooked bread and walked through the Vacaresti delta. We talked and
talked, about the world and what is happening to the environment, about the
pandemic and all.

Daniela
Pălimariu told us how the team involved with the aforementioned project got
together.

Daniela Palimariu: Each of the three partners in this project, I, Catinca and Rachel proposed
a number of young emerging artists, some from Bucharest, some from Berlin. Some
of them I knew pretty well, about the others I was just curious. Anyway, the
group eventually started to take shape and some bonds were created. The
relationship between us grew steadily because we had this time between the
symposium in July and the exhibition that we have now. We wanted to bring
together artists from various environments, with different approaches,
committed artists, who want to get involved in this on a long term. Their
commitment is visible in the way they work, they communicate, their
professionalism. Those very young are highly educated and we can continue to
develop this relationship on a long term.

The
aforementioned artists found the best ways to cooperate and communicate as Catinca
Tăbăcaru told us:

Catinca Tabacaru: I have participated in similar projects of this kind, which most of
the time ended up in some frustration or tension of one kind or the other. However,
this time because we were able to choose the artists ourselves and we wanted
them to be smart, ambitious but with a good heart, we relied very much on this
idea of slowing down a bit. We all had the feeling that life is hectic nowadays
so we decided to take things easily for a while. We went together to the
market, bought organic food from farmers, cooked some meals and tackled various
issues, from private to general. We went for a stroll in the Vacaresti park,
which was quite a slice. One of the artists who was from Taiwan got us together
in a special kind of meditation, where we tried to experience some sort of collective
rest and even collective dreaming if possible. It was an interesting experience
one cannot quite often have as an adult. Children often sleep together, but we
as adults not very often, you know. So we created an atmosphere where we can
feel and listen more than we can talk or do, although it turned out to be a lot
of talking eventually.

Yen Chun Lin,
Isabella Fürnkäs, Lexia Hachtmann, Bethan Hughes, Lera Kelemen, Barbara Lüdde,
Catinca Mălaimare, Rachel Monosov, Daniela Pălimariu, Ana Pascu, Ioana Stanca,
Ana-Maria Ștefan are the other artists involved with the project. The outcomes
of their meetings will be on view by February 12th at the Catinca
Tăbăcaru and Sandwich Malmaison Gallery. But what is the public going to see
there? Here is Daniela Pălimariu again:

Daniela Palimariu: The other space is Sandwich of Space, an extension of the Sandwich gallery
opened in 2016 and the works on view here are various in both spaces. These two
galleries have been fitted with size-specific installations but they also have
on view paintings, sculptures, ceramics, video installations and a performance offered
by Catinca Malaimare. There is only one
exhibition but with two locations, which I might say aren’t different
conceptually. Of course most of the works stemmed out of our summer experience as
well as the relationship created back then. Many have specifically hinted at
our group and the experience we enjoyed together, as the number 12 recurrently
appears in some works and so do various images we shared back then. However,
these aren’t very clear, very specific as every artist was left the freedom to
interpret that experience as they wanted and that became visible in the works.

The exhibition
is the most visible part of the project and comes as a conclusion of the
symposium held in the summer of last year, where the participants met and were
introduced to the host-city Bucharest. However, the most important thing is that
these young artists managed to find a functional way of surviving during a
pandemic without losing themselves.

(bill)