The group exhibition “Honey, I Got You a Seat”, curated by Cristina Vasilescu, is part of the F-SIDES project, which has reached its third edition. F-SIDES is the first Romanian cinema club dedicated exclusively to films made by women and to alternative ways of looking at and representing femininity in cinema and society.

Lorena Cocioni, Dimitrie Luca Gora, Hortensia Mi Kafchin, Iulia Toma, Sabina Tupan, and Mihaela Vasiliu are the 6 artists who were invited to create a work in response to the 6 films presented for this season.

“In a social context where we are increasingly polarized, F-SIDES Season 3 was about how we look at each other. It was about imaginary boundaries, no-go zones, the way we draw lines that break our empathy, the contours that form new communities and families, but also stigmas.
The films and works of the season have been a conscious effort to look directly at the things, places, people, and experiences left on the edges, to recover their perspective.
The way we build the otherness of the norm, in which we look at the “others” in a reductive way and keep them on the periphery of expression, culture, and creation, is not just about gender dynamics. We keep people from different countries on the bench, with different minds, different abilities, different sexualities, different bodies, with different histories. The list goes on, but these were the alternate instances that we invited to take on a central role at F-SIDES this year.
We wanted to train the public eye so that they could see more, so we tried to embrace boundaries not only through the themes we tackled but also through our work process.

EXERCISE 1 was the format of “Honey, I got you a seat”, through which 6 artists produce a work in response to the film, placed in the cinema as viewers. We wanted to create a contamination process in which the kinematic and visual arts languages overlap and challenge us with even more reflections, questions, and ways to connect with the topics that the film deals with.

EXERCISE 2 was to get the culture out of the center. We also draw restrictive borders in Bucharest: where culture deserves to take place, where not, desirable or stigmatized neighborhoods, places where you step or where you better not step, good residents or bad residents, places that deserve investment or that are forgotten. Usually, these delineating lines come from automatisms, not from a direct experience with a particular space.

The ISAF building is part of the legacy of the railway industry in Giulesti, which was left in disrepair and then rehabilitated as a space for workshops and galleries. Thus, the location of the exhibition represents both an accessibility of the arts in the neighborhood community, through dedicated guided tours, and an invitation for the general public to create a new relationship with this area and to know its story.
Therefore, the exhibition will be accompanied by a communication action that explains the history of the ISAF building and the area where it is located, constituting precisely one of the key points of the curatorial theme, namely how we look at each other, how we build separations, and how we can look less dichotomously”, was the event described by the organizers.

The exhibition can be visited until November 14, from Wednesday to Saturday, from 15:00 to 20:00.
Location: ISAF Building (Calea Giuleşti nr. 14)
Free entry.

Project co-financed by the Bucharest City Hall through ARCUB within the Bucharest Affective Program 2022.
Season 3 is conducted with the support of AFCN, the Embassy of the Netherlands through the Human Rights Fund, Avon, the French Institute, Cinema Arta, Glitch Shop, and Accept Association.
Cultural project co-financed by the Administration of the National Cultural Fund. The project does not necessarily represent the position of the Administration of the National Cultural Fund. AFCN is not responsible for the content of the project or how the project results can be used. They are entirely the responsibility of the beneficiary of the funding.
Project funded by the Embassy of the Netherlands through Human Rights Funds.