ASSEMBLY

Eniko Vincze, Inter-urban competition for real estate development between “Silicon Valley” (Cluj) and “El Dorado” (Brașov)

In a post-privatization context, local governments contribute to creating favorable conditions for real estate development and, encouraged by the World Bank, engage their cities in a developmental inter-urban competition. My presentation discusses how, in the past decade, the regional cities of Cluj and Brașov, named the Silicon Valley of Europe and the El Dorado of real estate development, have used their former industrial platforms to attract real estate investors and developers at a different pace and under the influence of divergent re-industrialization trends.

Mișa Dumitriu, Restitution, land fragmentation, and urban planning at the fringes of Romania’s capital city. What went wrong?

The 1990s’ property restitution and privatization laws opened in Romania the paths for reshaping rural territories. The ownership structure change led to a high fragmentation of land, which set the preconditions for a specific morphology of urban structure. When placed in the proximity of a regional center, the rural localities underwent a distinct transformation led mostly by the speculative interests of the early 2000s’ real estate boom. What started as a suburbanization process diverged into an intensive sprawled urbanization helped by the context of a public administration infused with neo-liberal political-economic ideas. This presentation argues that the land property geography of Bragadiru – a newly formed city at the outskirts of Bucharest, Romania’s capital city – and the individual financial interests of the investors influenced the urban planning process and the spatial morphology, which resulted in highly dysfunctional urban areas, with poor infrastructure and poor living conditions.

Vladimir Us, Chisinau Civic Center – beyond the red lines

I will give an overview of more of a decade of activities (artistic interventions, architecture workshops, community events, etc) organized by Oberliht Association around Zaikin Park, a piece of green area located in the historic part of the city of Chisinau that was caught between the red lines of Cantemir Bulevard, a piece of infrastructure that was planned during socialist period but never actually materialized. The General Urbanistic Plan of Chisinau acts both as a protector of this small park but also as a continuous threat to its very existence.

Mick Wilson, Irish Home Removal: From the Land Question to the Housing Question

This presentation considers the specificity of the current accommodation crisis in Ireland and the history of Irish housing policy. Drawing on the different analyses of political economists, activist scholars, political commentators, and artists there is an attempt to consider some of the claims for Irish exceptionalism with respect to European comparators. This presentation also considers how the tensions between evidentiary discourses and larger historical narratives have shaped current debates.

Andreas Fogarasi, Nine Buildings, Stripped

What do society, politics, or history “look like” and how are those images shaped, and re-invented over time? “Nine Buildings, Stripped” is a long-term project that documents the changing architectural surfaces of the city by collecting actual fragments of buildings, both demolished and newly built. The results are “material packages”, wall-mounted sculptures composed of original parts of buildings that no longer exist and samples or parts of the structures that replaced them (facade elements, floorboards, tiles, glass panels, doors, bricks, color samples, etc.). They offer radically abstract portraits, reduced to materiality, colors, and tactile qualities, of specific urban situations across time. Between image and sculpture, surface and depth, document and construct, they embody example cases of how we build and rebuild at given moments: material freeze-frames that capture the complexity of the city’s genesis in vivid tableaus. By exposing the changing materials of the city, and the various motivations behind this constant re-building of the urban environment, I highlight the emergence and visible expression of political, economic, cultural, and sociological structures and the interconnectedness of seemingly diverse discourses: technology, culture, ecology, fashion, heritage conservation, or local lore.

Andrei Timofte, Fields of Interest and Limits of Artistic Research: the Social Factory of Desire

At a five-year distance from the completion of the doctoral studies, the presentation allows the reconsideration of some critical nodes and recurrent artistic research aspects of the personal activity. The main themes addressed in the video essays, objects and interventions produced during the research are drawn for reconsideration. The themes addressed draw connections between the global market, immaterial labor and human capital. In the local context, I analyzed the emergence of immaterial labor as a dominant economic form during the transition period that started at the beginning of the 90s. The project identifies mutations in the process of archiving and valorizing modernist cultural memory, specific to national states within the rise of a new global economic order. Thus, my initial research analyzed the adjustment of social relations and identity behaviors in the context of uneven development, from the perspective of the new dominant social classes. The study followed the role and influence of human capital on subjectivity and the contradiction between dominant social attitudes and the formation of a new political subject based on solidarity and common social experience, as a result of joining the European space. Over the course of a few slides I will reconsider the relationship between art, work and exploitation, trying to critically articulate the economic changes in the cultural industries that have occurred with the rise of neoliberal policies. In the economy of the project, the dynamic image represented an empathic component of social knowledge and a method of articulating artistic subjectivity. How does my own social experiences, housing efforts, and work relationships changed during this time?

Sarah Muscalu, The City as an Archive

In recent decades, artists have been increasingly inspired by the archive, understood as a space of commitment, and have found in it a resource of their practice and philosophies. If we discuss the use of archives in artistic practices, many of them have developed discourses in relation to the city, urban transformations and the dynamics of housing. The definition of the archive in its practical sense stops at the idea of the archive as a process, something that takes place despite the compilation, preservation, and so on that actually constitutes the archival space. The archive is a space where the future is as important as the past.

Delia Bulgaru, Mapping Urban Transformations Through Art Projects or Observing Urban Transformations Through Long-term Artistic Practices

Starting with artistic projects by Satellite group (2007-2012) and continuing with cultural projects developed by Satelit association (2019-present), the presentation follows several versions of the urban present of the city of Iasi, captured by documenting temporary artistic interventions located in certain places in public space. The urban transformations of the last 17 years have entailed profound and accelerated changes in urban patterns and processes across all spheres of local life therefore artistic initiatives in public space can complement, intentionally or not, data and knowledge regarding the dynamics and directions of urban changes and also their durability. In an attempt to understand through contemporary art several aspects related to housing, architectural aesthetics, the functionality of spaces dedicated to shared activities, the long-term concerns of artistic projects capture some parts of the city that have been remodeled often.In the cultural field, the interest in the representation and use of the “city” as a site/testing ground and debates, loaded with historical information about urban places/points that have disappeared or have been partially modified, contributes to the construction of the narrative of “urban transformations” through diverse and sometimes unusual instruments and perspectives.

Mona Vătămanu & Florin Tudor, Persepolis

Persepolis, a photographic project we started around 1999 /2000 explores post-socialist dwelling. Departing from the idea that Bucharest contains superimposed patterns of constructed utopia, our presentation will focus on the photographic series that document the co-existence of different architectural and historical strata of the city. Two other projects, Văcărești and Il Mondo Novo, will be evoked in the presentation as a reflection on the relation between architecture and memory as a process of continuous erasure, destruction and construction.

Cătălin Gheorghe, The Discarded Museum

When we approach the condition of the contemporary museum, we are in the situation to recall a set of key practices that defines the management, design and curation of such an institution, namely that a museum should be inclusive, immersive, participative, interactive, multisensorial, performative, community-oriented, digital, data responsible, sustainable, among others.
Otherwise, questioning the museum as an institution in the context of a strategical cross fertilisation of sciences, arts, entertainments and different forms of educations, paradoxically potentiate by an endemic commercial impulse to diversify the audiences, we can think to the function of an experimental museum that would publically express dissatisfactions, distresses, disagreements, misfortunes, and other correlative feelings of the dismissed.

Cristina Moraru, The Empty Museum: Understanding Cultural Disengagement through Bourdieu’s Field Theory

The concept of the “empty museum” can be examined through the lens of Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory, particularly within the sociological framework of cultural production and power dynamics. Bourdieu’s theory delineates the art world as a distinct social field, characterized by its own rules, hierarchies, and forms of capital. The “empty museum” metaphor underscores the relational dynamics between cultural institutions and societal structures. It signifies spaces void of engagement, lacking in public interaction, and failing to fulfill their cultural and educational roles. Bourdieu’s notions of cultural, social, and symbolic capital are pivotal in understanding this phenomenon. Cultural capital, embodied in the knowledge and appreciation of art, is unevenly distributed, often rendering museums inaccessible or irrelevant to broad segments of the population. The “empty museum” thus symbolizes the exclusivity and elitism prevalent within the art field, where cultural production and consumption are dominated by those possessing the requisite capital. Social capital, reflected in the networks and relationships that connect individuals within the art world, further delineates boundaries. Museums, as arbiters of taste and cultural legitimacy, often perpetuate existing social hierarchies by privileging certain narratives and artists. This exclusivity can alienate potential visitors, resulting in physical and metaphorical emptiness. Symbolic capital, the recognition and prestige associated with art, reinforces these dynamics. The “empty museum” highlights a disjunction between the institution’s perceived cultural authority and its actual social relevance. When museums fail to resonate with or attract diverse audiences, their symbolic power diminishes, questioning their role within the broader cultural field. Through Bourdieu’s field theory, the “empty museum” emerges as a critique of institutional practices and societal inequities. It invites a reevaluation of how museums can democratize access to cultural capital, foster inclusivity, and redefine their roles as vibrant, participatory spaces within the social fabric. This problematization underscores the need for structural changes that bridge the gap between cultural institutions and the diverse publics they aim to serve.

Preeti Kathuria, Motivation in Contemporary Curatorial Research and Writing

Describing and interpreting contemporary art practice through writing is a tough-enough task. It involves stabilizing and substantiating words and language to convey the multivalence of art practices. Curatorial writing over the years has expanded into an intensely vast ambit of content generation. Besides steering the artist-audience connection through conventional wall texts, display panels, press releases, artist statements and catalog essays; the multi-vocal discipline is expected to administer several user-friendly virtual formats too, like website texts, podcasts, grant applications, blogs, press articles, and social media blurbs. Outside the basic function of describing and interpreting, an opinionless piece written for the general-audience, further demands a careful mediation of new information with sufficient fact-checking and no room for callous patronizing. Even though curatorial writing hinges on keen witted-observation and the articulation of its own parameters of inquiry; it thrives on the consistent effort to establish a triangulation between description, research and personal experience. And the glue to hold this together is
to prioritize information, richness, texture, readability and coherence in writing. The process of research-based curatorial writing, therefore, operationalizes and prioritizes certain ideas that are already always embedded within certain specific contexts. Faced with puzzles and powers, the motivation to write meaningfully, is then, a sort of layering; a persuasive proposition to engage; and a discovery along the process of research.

Ovidiu Țichindeleanu, The City as Intimate Colonization.

As an observing witness of the radical transformations of the cities from the region of South-East Europe in the past decades, I propose a few references for the cultural history of alienation of the post-socialist city.

Ioana Florea, Post-industrial “myths”

The dominant capitalist discourses have insisted in the last three decades that the socialist economies have crumbled on their own, due to inefficient industrial production and distribution capacities. The strongest counter-narratives to this view were the workers stories and memories – but they were often disqualified by the dominant actors and information channels/platforms as “myths”. Slowly, since the 1990s, they were silenced, while the economy and the state were restructured according to the new requirements of the global capital flows. On the contrary, our REDURB research project revealed evidence from diverse sources that actually back the so-called “myths”. The presentation will reflect on this evidence. It illustrates how capitalism used/ uses deindustrialization as a way to dismantle economies and turn brownfield (as well as greenfield) sites into profit extraction.

***Stealth.Unlimited, Цentar for New Cooperative Housing (Belgrade)

How do we arrive at a future that we cannot – or dare not – imagine? In 2023, a group of people came together to kickstart a new chapter in housing development in Serbia. Housing that does not plunder our future but instead forms a robust, supportive base for the communities that initiate, jointly own, and live in it. Something that deviates so much from our realities today that we have collectively started a journey to imagine, embody, and propel us forward. In this contribution, we look at the rolling adventure of the Цentar for New Cooperative Housing in Belgrade.

Škart (group) (Djordje Balmazovic): Working Together

”In the presentation, I will show the practice of Škart group from 1990-2000 and from 2000 onward. If I had to decribe škart’s work in a few words, it would be – working together. From the beginning until now, the škart group has had a few goals: 1) trying to communicate with people outside of the so-called art field, 2) trying to work in larger groups and collectives than škart is itself, and 3) trying to achieve satisfaction in working, thinking that having pleasure and learning from others during the work is more important than making the perfect product.”

Silvia Amancei & Bogdan Armanu, Can one be poor and happy? Can one be poor and an artist? Can one work and be happy? Can one work and be an artist?

We find that it is becoming impossible to speak about art and the means of producing art, or any other cultural activity, without talking about the surplus on which this activity is a direct result. Lack has continuously eroded our will to envisage a future, from childhood on, and we believe that this is not a singular reality… that this experience of being and living, in a continuous state of uncertainty, shortcomings and failed hopes / dreams, this is the common language that is uniting us in a boiling soup of exhaustion.

Andrei Pripasu, A craftsman’s perspective

As an architect who has switched professions to become a full-time furniture maker, I will try to put together a short speculative report based on my personal experience and impressions after several years of making furniture for private clients that mainly inhabit new housing estates in Iaşi and the surrounding suburbs.

Ovidiu Tichindeleanu, The Semi-Periphery and the Internal Divide of the MIddle Class

Recent local studies on the city as a site of capital accumulation and political violence, as well as on urbanity as a concentration of symbolic power and at the same time as erasure of select memories, have brought a deeper understanding of the specific transformations of capitalism itself, in its cores, after three decades of transition to capitalism in Eastern Europe. I propose a synthesis of these contributions and a reflection on the internal contradictions of class formation at the semi-periphery, bringing into focus the trajectory of the local elites in a world-system which is undergoing fundamental transformations.

Enikő Vincze, The destructive creativity of capitalism – a view from financialized real estate development on the ruins of deindustrialization

My presentation reconfigures the concept of creative destruction in a Marxist tone by the notion of destructive creativity. It proposes to politicize capitalism’s need to enforce the devaluation and destruction of old productive forces and built environments and replace them with something new to create innovative opportunities for capital investment in response to its business cycles. In this endeavor, I will use examples from the REDURB project to highlight how capital switching, spatial fixing, recomposing class relations, and re-urbanization worked in relation to Romania to destroy the socialist industrial complex and replace it with a post-industrial real estate/financial complex.

Preeti Kathuria, Consequent Land

Farming is contingent to Land, just like the crop is contingent to rain and life to basic sustenance. A number of contemporary artists have made concerted efforts to acknowledge and address the issues of land and the complexities of being a farmer. Some artworks emerged from a deep understanding of land as site and the social structures of rural life while a few others have attempted to valorize the seemingly distant crisis. These artistic practices have raised different questions about the relationship between the land and the farmer in the context of development that manifests unevenly within and between disparities such as structural poverty, gender inequality, food and water insecurity, land degradation, energy and climate crisis, caste structures, and more. Consequent Land is a collective expression of the crisis in the agriculture sector in India that has been addressed by some contemporary artists, many of whom come from the rural context themselves. This installation brings together the titles of artworks that typically address land as a recurrent theme. Although the artworks do not share a common analysis of the crisis, many commentators have identified inequality and corporatisation as key drivers of the crisis.

Mick Wilson, A speculative genealogy of (mostly anglophone) artistic discourses on Real Estate

This presentation will consider some of the different ways in which contemporary art has become a site for critical commentary, analysis and intervention into housing and real estate speculation. The talk provides an introductory outline of diverse artistic responses to housing policy and urban development, drawing upon examples from Ireland, Portugal, Sweden, the UK, and the USA.

***STEALTH.unlimited – Ana Džokić and Marc Neelen

From where we live, the world has drifted away. This talk stutters out of a perpetual ending of the world “as we know it” – time travel starting from Belgrade’s 1990s obliterated concept of societal ownership, moving on to the 2000s methodical scavenging of its carcasses, then a Global Financial Crisis that found nothing more left to foreclose in our society, to spin to a glittering Belgrade Waterfront Development that, like a real-estate zoo, has landed in our city for us to peek at. And there we were – this city didn’t want or need us. And someday, your city won’t want you either. Hence, we have started rewriting our options. Using collective action, adaptation, and persistence, we may have carved out a path from the ruins of today’s future.