One of the core goals of the INFLUX platform lies in helping crystalize the vibrant Romanian artistic community working with photography both nationally and internationally, but which due to adverse conditions, lacking opportunities and slim institutional support still finds difficulties in forming a cohesive structure. To aid in this process, we aim to create in the “Resources” section of the website a database of notable other projects and initiatives involving photography, providing links and a few descriptive words wherever possible. Our hope is this will help in creating a clearer picture of all the efforts undertaken by the community.
The Centre for Contemporary Photography in Iasi, Romania is a platform for reflection about photography and moving image and their relationship with the political, social, cultural and economic context.
Some of the main objectives of the institution are the production of contemporary images, the coagulation of the Romanian contemporary photography scene and its integration in the international context.
C_F_C was founded in Iasi, in 2015, by Matei Bejenaru, Lavinia German, Cătălin Gheorghe, Cristina Moraru, Cristian Nae and Cătălin Soreanu.
Centru de Fotografie Documentară produces in-depth visual investigations of local topics in Romania and beyond by mixing various media such traditional documentary photography, sounds, video and various visuals. Our work involves interdisciplinary teams which makes us to operate at the crossroads of journalism and art. They provide photography grants, have launched the first printed collection of documentary photography in Romania, developed a free online digital archive of the most important documentary visual projects done recently in Romania.
The Romanian Center for Documentary Photography co-founders are Ioana Cîrlig – project coordinator, Petruț Călinescu – project coordinator, Ioana Calinescu – communication & PR.
RoArchive, an artistic research project initiated by Iosif Kiraly / Raluca Oancea / Raluca Ionescu, put forward a dynamic team of curators, artists, and sociologists with the primary goal of de/reconstructing Romania beginning with the year 2010, in the aftermath of the country’s recent adherence to the E.U. Having the creation of a cultural archive of texts and images at its core and by using workshops, lectures and exhibitions RoArchive brought together a proposal centered on the model of the Postmodern and Post-structuralist archive. The modernist collection of cultural objects preserved as testimony of an identitary thus becomed form of artistic expression, over-encompassing factor, or filter of cultural redundancy. No longer limited by its condition as treasurer of the past, the archive is free to be part of the mapping of the present and the facilitation of the new.
D PLATFORM involved an artistic research, centered on photographic practice, that is part of the wider spectrum of the recent renegotiation of the relationship between natural and cultural values. In an era marked by functionality and anthropocentrism, an analysis of the impact of technology on nature, of the possibilities of human resettlement in the wider perimeter of life, proves useful. The main concern pursued by the D PLATFORM project is the need for society’s awareness of the effects of the neglect of cultural and natural resources, as well as the need to harmonize technology, as a sum of indispensable tools, with nature and culture. It pursued two types of objectives. The first referred to the encouragement of contemporary artistic act of young artists, the second to the research, protection and promotion of an effective natural area – the Romanian part of the Danube.
FRAME10, initiated by Rezidența9 together with Michele Bressan, aims to highlight efforts and practices of artists who are identified today with a new wave of Romanian photography: the post-2000 generation. Each FRAME10 meeting proposes an artist’s presentation, followed by a conversation with Michele Bressan, but also with the present audience. The goal is to explore and fix a moment of Romanian contemporary art in full swing, deserving to be validated through a lively dialogue. The project is structured in 10 interactive meetings throughout 2022, which will take place at the BRD Scena9 Residence on I.L. Caragiale 32.
RO AREAL is an instagram page dedicated to contemporary Romanian artists that are working with photography. From emerging to established artists, based both in Romania as well as abroad, we want to generate an essential dialogue between generations and create an echo within the international scene.
The Minerva Press Photo Archive from Cluj contains clichés made by the reporters of the Igazság and Făclia newspapers between 1965 and 1993. The archive consisting of more than 30,000 6X6 negatives was saved immediately after the 1989 revolution by one of the former editors. It records the various legacies of the former regime, materials used in the local press – documents that, consciously or unconsciously, were destined to be forgotten, being often identified with propaganda. Similar legacies have either been lost or lie dormant. The collection was kept in the media research center of the Minerva Cultural Association and was largely invisible, with only a few of these images appearing in the two dailies mentioned. Starting with 2014, through the collaboration of two institutions from Cluj, the Minerva Cultural Association and the Conset workshop of Tranzit Foundation, with the financial support of the Romania One Foundation, they’we managed to digitize the entire collection of negatives and to build a website that is making them available to the general public, who can view it now freely and entirely.