The Garden of Eden, Joy.
Paradise, Love.
We aren’t sure about what any of these words mean, they mean nothing and everything, all at once. Whether we convene to describe a place or a feeling, we must first acknowledge our clumsiness, as a species, in trying to capture the essence by way of the spoken or the written word.
Yet there is another, similarly abstract way to attempt to get to the heart of the matter – the camera.
The camera strikes up conversations whenever curiosity takes the wheel and it even succeeds in creating stacks of meaning, just like books in a library, through a single click of a button – one photograph taken by a skilled photographer opens up entire universes.
The camera’s inherent invasive nature is tamed in both photography series — Lucian’s Urban Gardens and our On Love resolving a conundrum as old as the science of light upon paper, that of exploitation.
Away from this ethical caveat, we click and point to some natural habitat in which both myself and my wife feel love and loved, entranced in the all too familiar dance with reality.
What we wanted to do with love in our project was to desire the viewer to shoo away the idea of ‘subjects’ by looking at us how we look at each other – with love. Our tony collective interest in ‘subjects’ should instantly peel off to reveal the pulp inside, people and their very fleshy lives and good intentions.
With images of two people having the time of their lives, literally, we hope to have the viewers admit that what is behind the camera and what is in front of it matters equally. Every image was taken with love and enthusiasm for the craft and for each other, without exception.
Luckily, Lucian’s urban gardens reveal love as topos, a safe place created in which one feels warm no matter the whirlwind of happenings outside these human-made sanctuaries.
The emotions my wife and I exchange intimately are easily transcribed in the way a rose is cared for, how a bench is placed just so under the cool shade of a leafy tree amidst the summer heat, how a doghouse provides a home for the neighborhood pup.
Daniela Groza Pop (b. 1983, Constanța) graduated in 2006 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Italian philosophy and Literature from UC Berkeley. She drives a taxi in New York city and lives between Cluj and New York. Daniela’s multidisciplinary practice consists of forays into text art, photography and embroidery, all with the aim of donating cash through the BE KIND FOR REAL project that she launched in 2014.
Ioana Groza Pop (b. 1994, Târgu Mureș), graduated in 2016 with a Bachelor’s degree in Film, Photography and Media Studies Arts and a Master’s degree in Documentary Filmmaking from Babes-Bolyai University. She has been working in Cluj and Bucharest as a photographer, editor and camera operator.
Daniela and Ioana married in 2022 and together they research the concept of joy in the visual arts. They are interested in the absence of happiness in (self-)portraiture and how happiness, when present, comes through as an act of resistance against capitalist and heteronormative ways of life. The couple has been exhibited in the USA and Romania and are slated to open their first solo show in New York in April 2025.
Lucian Bran lives and works in Bucharest. He graduated the Photography class, MA (2015) and BA (2009), of the National University of Arts, Bucharest. His interdisciplinary approach to landscape photography uses cynicism and sentimentality to subvert the ideological constructions shaping how we see our place within the societal world. His trademarks are self-reflexive photographic series which focus on the medium’s contribution to the material culture of global and local geographical imagination. Selected solo exhibitions: From Centuries Ago to Eons to Come, ElectroPutere Gallery (2021), Săgeată, floare, foc, Borderline Art Space, Iasi (2019), Borrowed Territories, Galeria Posibila, Bucharest (2015), Back to Wellhead, Museum of Municipal Engineering, Krakow Photomonth – Show OFF, Krakow (2014). Selected group exhibitions: Landschaft, die sich erinnert, MNAC, Bucharest (2018), Landschaft, Fotogalerie Wien, Wien (2018) Space Is Not The Final Frontier, Salonul de Proiecte, Bucharest (2016), Mulhouse 015 Biennale, Mulhouse, France (2015). Awards and Residencies: Plat(t)form – Fotomuseum Winterthurn (2019), shortlisted for The New East Photo Prize, Calvert Foundation (2016) and nominee for The Unseen ING Talent Award (2016), Residency at ICR Paris (2012). Publications and inserts: Borrowed Territories, published by Galeria Posibila (2016), Săgeata, floare, foc, published by CDFD Grants (2018)
Romanian Contemporary Photography INFLUX – Looking Back to the Future
This joint presentation has been made possible through the “Looking Back to the Future” project. Beside including new project and article commissions, it’s main goal is to provides a bird’s eye view on the use of photography in the Romanian art scene spanning across the last three decades (and beyond). By showcasing texts, publications and exhibitions of relevancy in the this (not so) recent history, we can outline the development of this medium, highlighting the major transformations and trends that have defined the Romanian photographic expression.
This project was co-funded by the National Cultural Fund Administration (AFCN). It does not necessarily represent the position of the National Cultural Fund Administration and AFCN is not responsible for the content of the project or for how the project results may be used. These are entirely the responsibility of the funding beneficiary.
