Memory and foresight
05.11.2018
The last 100 years marked the most radical changes in the history of art making. The recent cultural globalization and the rapid pace of digital technology development have increasingly transformed the way we produce and experience art, and how we participate in our sociocultural melieu.
Memory is an essential instrument in assessing the effects of these changes, understood as individual memory (a temporal dimension of our psychic organization), collective memory centered around important historical milestones and defined as an interaction between official (historical) memory and recollections (common memory), and cultural memory defined by archaeologist Jan Assman as “the way the society views its past via newspaper articles, memorials, monuments, films, and buildings.”
The project events cut across these various senses of the concept of memory in order to perform a projective interpretation of the past, and at the same time a prospective view of the future. Assuming the Centennial (100 years since the Union of Bessarabia, Bukovina, and Transilvania with the Kingdom of Romania) as a source of reflection upon the transformations in art and society draws possible directions of artistic production, but also perspectives of theoretical discourse.
International conference: “Alternative Memories. Possible Futures of Visual Arts”
1.11.2018, NEC, Bucharest
Keynote speaker: Ryszard W. Kluszczyński.
Speakers: Corina Cimpoieru, Luana Stroe, Horea Avram, Sylwia Borowska-Kazimiruk, Maria Chatzidimou, Sabin Borş.
Chaired by: Horea Avram, Mihai Ometiță.
More information about the conference and participants.
Public session: “Inter-visions: Critical Reflections in Visual Arts from Romania”
2.11.2018, MNAC, Bucharest
Guests: Călin Dan, Ruxandra Demetrescu, Cătălin Gheorghe, Daria Ghiu, Adrian Guță, Mara Ratiu, Székely Sebestyén György (Sebö).
Moderator: Horea Avram.
Silent film screening: “Retrospections. Cinema Between the Wars”
3.11.2018, Union Cinema, Bucharest
The programme features a selection of silent films and early sound films (fiction, animation, as well as a series of documentary shorts and news reports) that renders Romanian social and cultural environment in the interwar period.
Moderator: Mihai Ometiță.
Music: Dragoș Mărgineanu.
Project manager: Emilian Mărgărit. Project coordinator: Horea Avram, Mihai Ometiță. Photo & video: Lucian Crișan. Identity & communication: Elena Dobîndă. Organizer: Image and Sound. Partners: New Europe Collage (NEC), The National Museum of Contemporary Art (MNAC), The National Film Archive (ANF).
Cultural project co-funded by the Administration of the National Cultural Fund. The project does not necessarily represent the standpoint of the Administration of the National Cultural Fund. AFCN cannot be held liable for the content of the project or the manner in which the outcomes of the project may be used. These shall devolve entirely on the beneficiary of the financing.