On Thursday, March 19, starting at 6:30 PM, MNAC Bucharest inaugurates the documentary photography exhibition “PLECAT/Away” – A living archive of Romanian migration in Europe, created by photographer Cosmin Bumbuț and journalist Elena Stancu. The exhibition is the result of six and a half years of documenting Romanian migration across Europe and offers an intimate look at the lived experiences of Romanians who have left the country.

Documented across 12 European countries, the “PLECAT” (Away) project combines documentary photography with excerpts from reportage, explanatory texts, and installations inspired by the everyday spaces of migration: the shelves of a Romanian grocery store or the informal parcel drop-off points found in highway parking lots and on the outskirts of cities, where minibuses from Romania stop to deliver food and symbolic objects from home.

Journalist Elena Stancu and photographer Cosmin Bumbuț live and travel in a camper van, documenting migration from within Romanian communities across Europe. They park near farms, shipyards, and peripheral neighbourhoods, temporarily living close to the people they photograph and interview. This proximity transforms the process of documentation from an act of observation into an experience lived alongside migrants.