The Artep Gallery Association dedicated 2024 to contemporary art from the perspective of women. Its series of cultural projects questioned acute topics at the European level—climate change, body politics, and domestic space—with curatorial concepts fully developed by guest curators.
Between October 31 and December 1, 2024, the Artep Gallery in Iași proposed a visual journey mediated by 6 new video works in the Romanian space and artistically conceptualized by the curator Olivia Nițiş.
DOMESTIC is a cultural project initiated by the Artep Gallery Association and co-financed by the National Cultural Fund Administration, which met efforts to understand the current context of women’s rights and equal opportunities in Romania and in other Eastern European countries from the nuanced perspective of the relationship with the historical, political and mentalities present and past, bringing to public attention narratives documenting the impact of domestic life on women.
“State policies and legislative regulations regarding women’s rights in the territories of the former Eastern Bloc maintained a conservative view of the role of women in society, despite equal rights and formal opportunities, generating social norms and prejudices that are still maintained today, contributing to the one-way association of women with the domestic space. In the idea of the imprint of an aesthetic and some issues specific to these territories, but also some nuanced differences, the Domestic project brings together several narratives from Romania, Serbia and Croatia at the intersection of video art and short film. The speeches invite a deep understanding of the ways in which contemporary society defines the notion of domestic, both as a physical and mental space, observing social pressure, the dynamics of gender roles and the relationship between private and public life”, details Olivia Nițiș, curator of the installation DOMESTIC visuals.
The project also developed a platform for debates on women’s rights and domestic or social abuses that exist and are too little mentioned in the public space.
