From 5 to 22 November /SAC @ Malmaison (Calea Plevnei 137C, 2nd floor) presents the cultural project Trecuturi Prezente. Arhiva și corpul in the form of a performatively activated visual installation on November 5, 6, 12, 13, and 17 – a pendulum between forgetfulness and recovery, erasure and reconstruction. Spaces, objects, and stories from past times are brought to the present, and reconfigured, building experiences that become new sources of archival. Viewers will become witnesses of this typical mechanism of subjective archiving.
What’s left when there’s apparently nothing left?
Paradoxically, the more time passes, the more we are interested in things that we no longer have access to. The city of Pompeii is extraordinarily preserved under the lava that covered it one day 2000 years ago. The emptiness left in the lava by the disappearance of organic matter became the mold of plaster bodies, palpable witnesses of that world. As in an upturned mirror, following the programmatic destruction of the hill Uranus, although recent, almost nothing tangible remained, only a few physical fragments; instead, a community with extremely vivid memories was created.
How do you connect with your history?
Ioana Marinescu tried to understand a part of the city that disappeared in her childhood, in the 80s: she researched archives, discovered photos, and interviewed former residents of the Uranus area. She was interested in the subjective approach to the archive, its awakening, and relating to the present and through the body. Here appeared the performative side through which we connect with this subject that has become, in the meantime, also a Ph.D. thesis.
Thus, the multidisciplinary project Trecuturi Prezente. Arhiva și corpul, research the relationship between body, memory, and archive in various communities deployed from radically destroyed places.
The performative actions of 5, 6, 12, 13, and 17 November are carried out with the participation of Mrs. Aurelia Anton, a former resident of the Uranus neighborhood and in collaboration with Katia Pascariu (actress), Ana Turos (actress), Cristian Văraru (sound and video editing), Doina Apreotesei (costumes).
On November 12 and 13, during the event, two workshops dedicated to members of the Ukrainian community in Bucharest will be organized, active witnesses of a phenomenon of destruction and deployment, which is in full swing. Sveta Bird (Svitlana Pashko), a dancer and choreographer from Ukraine, will hold the contact improvisation workshops – The Body is My Home. Even if sometimes we are forced to leave our homes, to move, we always remain present in the body. We are the masters of this unique tool that we harmonize with the flow of life and the changes that occur.
The artistic approach was developed together with Smaranda Găbudeanu (choreographer and performer, founder of PETEC) and Iulia Mărăcine (performer, co-founder of Ludic Collective) and supported by Alex Radu (president of /SAC – Contemporary Art Space). The filming in Pompeii and Bucharest was done by Laurențiu Calciu (documentary film director).
Visual and performative installation Trecuturi Prezente. Arhiva și corpul is part of the curatorial program “Open Context” to /SAC @ MALMAISON of collaborative and transdisciplinary co-productions, research, and practices in the visual, performative and scenic arts. The /SAC team that collaborated in the realization of the installation: Justin Baroncea (architect), Maria Ghement (architect), and Simona Abagiu (producer).
Project Trecuturi Prezente. Arhiva și corpul is produced by PETEC (Association for Theatre and Book) in co-production with /SAC @ MALMAISON, in partnership with H2Dance (London), CNDB (National Dance Center Bucharest), Beaconsfield (London), community platform Cartier Uranus, CESI (Center of Excellence in Image Study), Radio Romania Cultural, Igloo.
PETEC is an interdisciplinary platform for production, research, and education in the field of contemporary performing arts, with openness to related artistic, social, and humanities fields. PETEC’s productions start from the exploration of awkward themes and performative languages through which we test new methods and forms of work each time. These experiments take various forms, from contemporary dance and theatrical performances to films, installations, and performative interventions in unconventional spaces.
/SAC @ MALMAISON is the second space in Bucharest of /SAC after the one that opened in 2018, on Berthelot Street, no. 5. /SAC @ MALMAISON is located in a context community, the Malmaison Workshops, an artistic community that includes artists’ studios and exhibition spaces, recently founded in the Malmaison building with a history of almost two centuries, centrally located on Calea Plevnei, 137C. This space was arranged with the support of POLICOLOR, URSA, and ALMALUX.
The Contemporary Art Space – /SAC – is an independent private initiative, a resource context dedicated to the current needs of the producer and the public to establish a direct and formative dialogue through exhibitions, research, and promotion.
Project co-funded by AFCN.
