Cristina David, Postcards from Mars

Cristina David’s solo exhibition, Postcards from Mars (2026), includes a series of video works made approximately 11 years ago during an artistic residency in Seydisfjörður, Iceland, as part of the project “Artists as Agents of Institutional Exchange,” carried out in 2015 by the tranzit.ro/ Iași Association in partnership with Skaftfell, Seydisfjörður, Iceland.
On the occasion of the exhibition opening, Cristina David will give a performative presentation in which, alongside a reflection on the entire creative process, she will also address the personal context that preceded her artistic residency.

“In 2015 I had decided to look for ways out of financial precarity, so I took a job at a call center. I worked for a Canadian mobile phone company. For six months I was experiencing for the first time what it meant to be an employee at a multinational corporation. The invitation to join the project ‘Artists as Agents of Institutional Exchange’ brought about a shift in my professional dynamic. Because I had not yet completed a year of employment, my contract with the outsourcing firm did not allow me to take three weeks of leave, even unpaid. I had to choose between giving up the job or giving up my participation in the project. The proposal to live and create for nearly a month in Seydisfjörður, Iceland won out without regret or hesitation. And so I left a mega-institution of global capitalism — where I was obviously nothing more than a small cog in an enormous economic machine — to become an agent in a cultural institutional exchange between two entities (tranzit.ro/ Iași and Skaftfell) whose purposes and structures are entirely opposed to those of the corporate world. Beyond this obvious detail, there is also the difference in scale of operation: global versus local. In the performance in Iași I will include both details about the series of video postcards from Mars sent 5.85 Martian years (11 Earth years) ago, and about the broader context of the entire process.” (Cristina David, 2025)

Cristina David’s solo exhibition, Postcards from Mars (2026), is part of Imagined Organisations: Practices of Artistic Research Moving Across Semiperipheries — a year-long programme of exhibitions, residencies, online seminars, and an international gathering in Iași and Chișinău, running from April to November 2026 at tranzit.ro/ Iași and 1+1. The programme brings together artists, curators, and theorists to exchange practices and perspectives on how artistic organisations navigate the new challenges posed by the transformative impact of artistic research.

This is a cultural project co-financed by the Administration of the National Cultural Fund (AFCN). The project does not necessarily represent the position of the Administration of the National Cultural Fund. AFCN is not responsible for the content of the project or for the way the project results can be used. These are entirely the responsibility of the beneficiary of the funding.

Co-organised by tranzit.ro/ iași in partnership with 1+1 Association and HDK-Valand Academy of Art and Design, associated initiative of the Centre for Art and the Political Imaginary (CAPIm).

The main partner of tranzit.ro is the ERSTE Foundation.

Images: Cristina David, Postcards from Mars. This one is for Daria Ghiu. 2 min 24 sec, 2015