The wall dividing my room from my sister's room is made out of a porous material. When she makes love or fights with her boyfriend I can hear everything. I could have saved money for the materials needed for phonic insulation, and then build an insulating layer for the wall dividing the two rooms.
Between the mayor of the Second Sector of Bucharest - Neculai Ontanu, and Liviu Negoita - the mayor of the Third Sector, a symbolic battle is being fought. It is materialized in the style and magnitude of the green spaces in front of the blocks of flats, but also of those at the major crossroads. In the Morarilor area, the line of tram 40 divides the two sectors, as it marks the border between them. While the flower arrangements in front of the gas station on the territory of the Third Sector are discreet, the flower arrangement and the urban furniture over the road, in Sector Two, surpass all visual expectations.
An extraordinary number of vases, columns, ornaments, types of flowers, flags, signs of the local mayor's office are crowded into a place too small for all of it. The waste of money and means are added to a questionable taste. Moreover, under the feeric landscape created by Neculai Ontanu, some homeless people live inside the sewer.
The first time I saw Neculai Ontanu's urban landscape arrangement I was quite shocked. Later on I had a conversation with Lidia Neagu, following which we decided to do something about this place. Lidia borrowed a bride's dress, I put on an overcoat. Thus, we disguised ourselves into bride and groom. We took pictures with our back to the camera, facing the green space built by Neculai Ontanu, but also posing as two youngsters disappointed by the mirage of marriage. The photos were taken by Larisa Sitar. More images here.
I could try to remember the last time when somebody smiled to me on the street in Bucharest. I think it would take a long time.
2. clearing
Hid one meter of internet cable behind the tallest poplar tree from a clearing in Pantelimon Park.
3. roadside
Hid one meter of internet cable under the leaves on the side of the road. The cables were taken from here.
Hid 40 meters of internet cable in the bushes within the wildest area of Pantelimon Park, by covering it with dry leaves. At first, the cable was hanging from a lamp post at the crossroads of Vergului and Bodesti streets. I went there with a pair of pliers and cut it off. More images here.
I could have removed the dry leaves and write 'manele' on the asphalt, using the sunflower seed husks I found in front of the two benches in Pantelimon Park. Manele is a type of music listened to by 90% of Romanians according to a statistic, and it is also associated with a certain lifestyle which sometimes includes eating sunflower seeds and dropping the husks around.
I could have done something against the person who is harassing my sister. From time to time he is sending people at my door who want to take pornographic photos with her. They come to my address after reading an announcement in the newspaper or on the internet. The one who is doing all this receives the calls of the people interested on his personal number and then he gives them my address. I have to threaten them with the police every time to get rid of them. Below there is a picture of one of these people who keep coming at my door.
I could have also placed an announcement in a newspaper to make him angry, because I have his number written in the love letter in which he asks my sister to marry him. You can find the letter written in Romanian here.
A brick fragment from a demolished house taken from Iancu de Hunedoara 48, shaped like a house using an electric power tool, poxilina (plastic), poxipol, white and black paint, glitter, water, a glass globe found in a deserted glass factory. The glass globe is fully functional, being able to display the falling snow effect, characteristic of this type of objects.
The production of ten glass globes lasted for three months. Each of them contained a brick fragment taken from a different demolished house in Bucharest. Two more months passed after the end of the production process. Then, on the 9th of August 2008, the glass globes were exhibited in galeria 29, an exhibition space arranged in the living-room of the apartment where I live with my family. At the end of the opening, five globes were given to the people who were present via a tombola. The rest were distributed to the members of the incepem group using the same method.
Metal balls arranged in a circle of 10 cm in diameter on an elevated platform at about ten meters height inside the Victoria Calan Siderurgical Plant, County of Hunedoara.
The model of a factory built out of the bricks of a foundry amongst the ruins of the Victoria Calan Siderurgical Plant, County of Hunedoara. More here.
Took a Barbie doll from my sister, made a bathing suit and a towel out of textile and tried to place her underneath the palm trees near the building of the University in Bucharest, as if she were sunbathing. Because the place is always full of cops during the day, I went there during the evening, at around 22.00. While I was taking photos of the palm trees surrounded by small marble pebbles using the flash of my camera, I was spotted by the CCTV on the lamp posts. A policeman riding a motorcycle was announced via radio, came to the scene and took me to the side of the boulevard, where I was fined for jaywalking.
My intention was to make an ironic comment on the palm trees planted in the center of the city, on which the local administration spent 25000 Euro. They are now replacing the clock which was responsible of the countdown for the entry of Romania in the European Union. This was recently moved to a less central area, at the crossroads of Marasesti and Dimitrie Cantemir boulevards. Once Romanians became Europeans officially, the object from public space which reminded passers-by of the stressful waiting period they lived before entering the EU (a stress staged by the same local administration through the use of the countdown system), is now replaced by an arrangement of plants that is at the same time frivolous and expensive.
The palm trees will be taken out of the green space and transported to a greenhouse during the winter, as they are fragile plants. Most probably, during the cold season they will be replaced with fir trees. The local administration stated that the replacement of the clock was due to the fact that it no longer worked. At the time the above photo was taken, the clock was showing the right time, only the electronic display that counted back the days to Romania's entering the EU was no longer functional. It is more than probable that moving the clock to another location and replacing it with the palm trees cost more that repairing it.
Meanwhile, others have taken action against the same palm trees. It seems that they were not noticed by the police, and I congratulate them for it :)
I could have gathered all the leaves that will soon start to fall from the poplar tree in the parking lot and store them in my balcony, in plastic bags. After a few months, during the winter, I could have emptied the bags over the edge of my balcony, letting the leaves fall over the first layer of snow.
During the night, I connected with a white line the brightest electric lamps from the Morarilor Park, as I see them from my balcony. I could have gone to the park the next day and tie the respective lamp posts together with a piece of string.
I could have entirely covered the red shoe with kisses and then leave it in the street, in the exact same position. On Soseaua Vergului, Bucharest, between two cars that were parked on the side of the road.
I could have completely covered an acorn with chewing gum and then throw it back into the grass, under the oak tree where it had fallen from. Outside the surrounding wall of the fortified church in Dealu Frumos, Sibiu county.
I could have arranged the broken pieces of the tail lamp from a Dacia car in two concentric circles, of different colors - a red one and a orange one. Found near the police office for accident registration in the city of Pitesti, Romania.
One used chewing gum hidden inside one of the plastic roses from the reception of the Zarea hotel, Chisinau, Republic of Moldova. The gum belonged to one of the participating artists from Interventii 3 festival. I chose to take a photo of the roses, and to consider this an intervention and a collaboration at the same time.
Two funeral wreaths (80 x 60 cm, blue / yellow / red paper flowers, plastic thread) worn as backpacks between the statue of Stephen the Great in the proximity of the Republic of Moldova Government building, Lenin’s statue from the Moldexpo Park and the empty pedestal of a monument that was being restored in front of the History Museum in Chisinau, Republic of Moldova. Authors: Vlad Nanca, Mircea Nicolae. Within Interventii3, a project for art in public space, Chisinau, Republic of Moldova. More here.
The flag of the European Union, the flag of the Republic of Moldova, two wooden poles 3,20 m x 8 cm, set up and abandoned on the banks of the small river that flows through the middle of the dry lake from the Valea Morilor Park, Chisinau, Republic of Moldova. The lake was emptied of water approximately two years ago, and it is said that it will be the place where a future residential complex will be built.
The members of the local Comsomol (the youth organization of the Communist Party from the Soviet Union) built this lake at the request of Leonid Brezhnev. Nowadays the lake is a wasteland, full of bushes and small trees, a landscape out of use and in a way, out of history. Authors: Nicoleta Esinencu, Vlad Nanca, Mircea Nicolae. Within Interventii3, a project for art in public space, Chisinau, Republic of Moldova. More here.
