This is Irina!
artist ~ museologist
"persoana fizica autorizata", F40/ 2680/ 29.05.2009, CUI 25617460
I like to combine my skills as visual artist and exhibit designer. In the last few years I've displayed my art in solo and group shows, worked in the Peasants' Museum as an assistant curator, and traveled in Europe and America for studies, internships, volunteer work, organising exhibitions about others and about myself, and the personal search for different art forms and social structures. Immediately after '89, with money from scholarships (Tempus, Soros, DAAD, Fulbright, etc), from selling my work, and from family and friends, I went out to find new cultures and new experiences.
Workshop in Ramnicu Sarat, Romania
Essential in all of these were the people I encountered, the layers of information I accumulated, and the moments of communion between my being and the outside world.
In this moment in my life I wish to collaborate on projects about educating a new generation in an informal way (museum education), promoting cultural heritage (through tourism, art, etc.), or encouraging cultural partnerships between Romania and EU and U.S.A.
Museum Work:
During the first half of 2008, I collaborated with The Ratiu Cultural Foundation in Turda, Cluj county. I developed the concept of the future Museum of Democracy there, and the framework of the exhibition design.
At the Antipa Museum in Bucharest, I am continuing the program I started last year called ZOOART. This is an interactive program linking art and science, where kids from 6 to 12 years old learn about various animal species. They learn about the animals from the museum's specialists, and apply what they learn with me in the studio with paint, graphite, clay, and other materials.
Art Education:
At this moment in my life I wish to collaborate on projects about educating a new generation in an informal way (museum education), promoting cultural heritage (through tourism, art, etc.), or encouraging cultural partnerships between Romania and EU and U.S.A.
This year, together with Ana Maria Manitiu, I organized three art summer camps outside the town of Brasov, of which two were conducted entirely in German (see www.tumba.ro). We succeeded in engaging the kids by familiarizing them with the environment where they were: exposing them to the Saxon cultural heritage in the village of Vulcan, involving them in farm life, and discovering the village and its nature. Indoors or outdoors, on short trips or in the yard, we managed to find a balance between playing and working, between individual work and group activities. Maybe one of the most memorable activities was painting the sunset from the hill above the village and admiring the moon on our way back! Having a profound respect for the countryside and its culture, we seek to pass this appreciation on to younger generations.
For this school year, 2008 - 2009, I am preparing other art programs in Bucharest, in English, German and French, for children of 4 - 7, 7 - 12, and intensive and advanced classes for 12 - 18 years old. For further information, please call or send an email.
Art Work:
Recently my husband and I presented our work in the penitentiary in Ramnicu Sarat during the Summer school organized by The Institute for Research of the Crimes of Communism in Romania: MI-OP, REDUCED VISIBILITY, a series of 20 silkscreens and a musical piece. I had waited for this unique moment to see and hear our work immersed in that space of exterminations of political prisoners between 1948 and 1963. We hoped for our work to be "touched" by the remains of the human sacrifice and inhuman violence that happened in that place, and for us to feel and learn more about that troubled time (see more under Visual Art).
(Some of our work was previously presented in Bucharest under the title MI-OP, THE VISIBILITY OF THE IMPRISONED CREATOR - VIZIBILITATEA CREATORULUI INTEMNITAT, to which we added new pieces made specifically for the exhibition in Ramnicu Sarat.)
We dedicated our work to people who suffered under Communist rule. We evoked some of theses figures and brought this work inside the penitentiary to fill the emptiness and break the silence of that neglected/ abandoned place.
Placing my work in that space, I hoped to emphasize the spiritual space that became the political prison Ramnicu Sarat. Displayed in the hallway and inside the cells, my silkscreens, white and suspended, transformed. I left my pieces there to get saturated by the memory of the light, the dust, the shadows, the steps, the floor, the doors. I hope I will have my silkscreens back rich in energy, dense in vibration from every corner, purified.
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