Romanian Creative Week, the largest event dedicated to the creative industries in the European Union, returns from October 2 to 8, 2026, with the second edition of RCW X Bucharest, the autumn capsule of RCW. Held under the High Patronage of the President of Romania, the event brings a substantial selection of the projects presented in Iași in May to the capital, reconfigured for new spaces and contexts, alongside projects conceived specifically for the Bucharest edition.
An important part of this autumn capsule is dedicated to the Arts pillar of Romanian Creative Week, supported by UniCredit Bank, with the support of Pepsi, Ploom, Jidvei, and Printco. Photography, installation, sculpture, fashion design, exhibition architecture, and participatory art come together over seven days in a route that moves through galleries and cultural institutions, while also extending into Bucharest’s parks and public squares. The common thread is the theme of RCW 2026, JOY, explored not simply as an aesthetic exercise, but through the relationship between viewer and artwork, body and space, nature, technology, memory, and identity.
RCW X Bucharest Opens with Alex Gâlmeanu’s Portraits
The Arts program begins on October 2 at 3:00 PM, at The Group, with the opening of … and Portraits by Alex Gâlmeanu. The exhibition can be visited until October 8 by invitation only. The exhibition setup, based on a design conceived by Alex Gâlmeanu, was developed by architect Mihai Birtu.
“Over the years, without any plan or brief, I would occasionally invite people into my studio, people whom I felt had something to say in a portrait. Over time, I realized that this might be my oldest ongoing project, perhaps dating back to 1992, but also, perhaps more importantly, my most fitting way of truly getting to know others: observing them through the viewfinder and lens of my camera. I also imagined a kind of game with the audience, in the form of an installation that invites them not only to look at the photographic results of these encounters, but also to follow them, while experiencing a form of intimacy themselves. Visitors will be invited to observe these photographs through keyholes, with the images placed behind closed doors arranged at the center of the exhibition space, the only way to examine them being through these openings,” says Alex Gâlmeanu.
PORTAL: Fashion Leaves the Runway and Enters the Botanical Garden
Also on October 2, at 5:00 PM, PORTAL, a fashion design, object, and participatory experience installation by Mihaela Glăvan, will open at the Art Gallery of the “Dimitrie Brândză” Botanical Garden, part of the University of Bucharest. Admission to the opening is by invitation, while the exhibition will subsequently be open to the public free of charge until October 8. The project explores what happens when fashion moves away from the logic of spectacle and comes closer to the body, matter, and silence.
“Nature is the most generous source of inspiration for me. The PORTAL installation represents an act of withdrawal, an emptying of the self, allowing matter, water, light, and silence to construct meaning.
Humility becomes a working state for both artist and visitor. Taking off one’s shoes, an ordinary gesture, becomes a symbolic threshold, opening the way to a participatory experience. In a city defined by speed, image, status, and constant exposure, the installation proposes a slow, tactile, almost ritualistic space,” says Mihaela Glăvan.
Hidden Realities: When Touching Water Produces Sound
Also on October 2, at 5:00 PM, the Botanical Garden will host the opening of Hidden Realities, a sound installation by visual artist Andrei Cozlac. Admission is free, and the exhibition will remain open until October 8. Starting from Nosce te ipsum — “Know thyself” — the work creates a series of points of resonance in which Tibetan singing bowls, water, the visitor’s gesture, and sound connect immediate reality with less accessible areas of perception. Touching the water activates the installation: the physical impulse is transformed into vibration and then into sound, while the audience’s participation gives introspection a physical dimension.
“Hidden Realities starts from those things we do not directly see within ourselves, but which continue to shape our relationships and the way we construct reality. I was interested in transforming this invisible realm into a perceptible experience: water becomes the surface of contact, the viewer’s gesture triggers the vibration, and sound becomes the trace of an inner reality that, for a few moments, takes physical form,” says Andrei Cozlac.
Hidrophoria Changes Its State of Matter
Also at the Botanical Garden, on October 2 at 5:00 PM, the opening of Hidrophoria will take place, curated by Caterina Pruteanu, with architectural setup by Carina Lăcătușu. Admission is free, and the exhibition can be visited from October 2 to 8.
“Hidrophoria arrives in Bucharest and slightly changes its state of matter. Initially conceived for a space associated with the body and bathing, the exhibition now enters the greenhouse of the Botanical Garden, where water is not always visible, yet makes everything grow. Among plants, light, and condensation, the works themselves seem more alive, more fragile, more permeable,” says Caterina Pruteanu.
Metafora, the Central Exhibition of RCW 2026, Reconstructed for One Night
The evening of October 2 continues at Scânteia+, where Metafora, the central exhibition of RCW 2026, will be reconstructed in Bucharest in a One Night Only format. Presented in spring in the Voivodes’ Hall of the Palace of Culture in Iași, the exhibition, curated by Marian Pălie, with exhibition design by architect Robert Marin, brings the same selection of nearly 20 artists into an architecture with a radically different identity and memory. Admission is exclusively by invitation.
The evening begins at 8:00 PM with the opening of Metafora, followed at 9:00 PM by the performance .aetherium by Andrei Budescu, and from 9:30 PM, Charles B takes over with a DJ set.
“The physical structure of the Metafora exhibition at RCW Iași was built using an adjustable system of metal bars, melamine MDF supports, and polyethylene dividers. Reinstalling the exhibition at RCW Bucharest ultimately tested the adaptability of such a structure. Reconfiguring the entire setup to occupy a new space in the context of an entirely new event highlights one of the fundamental characteristics of contemporary art: its adaptability,” explains Robert Marin, the architect responsible for the exhibition design.
The Mirror Stage: Mirror, Image, and Identity
The Arts program continues on October 3 at 3:00 PM, at Atelier 35, with the opening of The Mirror Stage. Admission is free, and the exhibition can be visited from October 2 to 8. Curated by Marian Pălie, the project is the result of a six-year research process and investigates the cultural, psychological, and aesthetic effects of the mirror on the human subject. Reflective surfaces become spaces in which self-image is multiplied, distorted, and negotiated, while the relationship between gaze, identity, and contemporary hypervisibility is brought into question.
Pietre de Hotar: When Simply Being Present in the City Becomes Part of the Work
At 4:00 PM, Pietre de Hotar, a project curated by architect Andrei Bodnar, will open in the Romanian Athenaeum Park. The project is open to the public free of charge throughout RCW X Bucharest. It uses the mirror as a signal within a space crossed daily by city residents.
At the same time and in the same location, artist Miki Velciov presents Synthetic Daisy. The installation transforms a daisy into an artificial object placed within the landscape, bringing nature and industrial production, the organic and the manufactured copy, into tension. The work reflects on the proliferation of botanical simulacra and the fragility of the contemporary relationship between humans and the natural environment. Admission is free, and the exhibition can be visited from October 2 to 8.
From the Fragility of the Moment to a Kaleidoscope in George Enescu Square
At the Central University Library, on October 3 at 4:30 PM, the opening of Fragile Thoughts powered by Pepsi, an installation by Georgea Dura and Andrei Cozlac, will take place. Admission is free. The work explores the fragility and ephemeral nature of the present through the contrast between a massive, static hand and an airy, unstable material, transforming the tension between the human desire to control time and the changing nature of reality into a large-scale image.
At 5:00 PM, in George Enescu Square, Kaleidoscope powered by Pepsi, curated by Silvan Cimpoeșu and Karina Luncașu, creates a labyrinth of color, movement, and direct encounters, developed in the context of Pepsi’s 60th anniversary in Romania.
Also in George Enescu Square, on the same day at 6:00 PM, Teatru Gonflabil, a project by Andrei Ivanovits and Ionuț-Valerian Ursachi, will open. The installation, open to the public on October 3 and 4, proposes a temporary structure intended for performance and encounters in the urban space.
The day continues at 7:00 PM, in the Royal Palace Courtyard, with the opening of Fantastic Posse, a new media installation by artist Sebastian Comănescu. Comprising three monumental inflatable sculptures, the work translates the theme of JOY into a group of fantastic “creatures” and takes conceptual inspiration from David Foster Wallace’s celebrated This Is Water speech.
The complete RCW X Bucharest 2026 program is available at www.romaniancreativeweek.ro.
