As part of a mapping of sustainable practices in rural Romania, we have invited a number of artistic initiatives to send us around five-minute videos that capture the atmosphere of the places where they are, in villages, in the middle of nature, outside the big cities. These represent only a few from a series of such initiatives, which are part of a relatively recent and growing tendency. We started from only a few examples of artists who grow gardens, installed their studios in their grandparents’ village or built residency places for other artists in places outside of the centres where they normally live. We organised a seminar in January 2022 and discussed their motivations and common grounds. Then we started to look around, in Romania and the region and invited more artists and cultural workers to contribute to this collection, with short, poetic or descriptive comments on their own experience. To each iteration of the montage, we added more. There are now 23 examples and it is still work in progress. Meanwhile some of the initiatives are on pause: personal lives that make it hard to commit to the presence in these places; difficulties in maintaining them without additional support; disenchantments with local authorities and communities; while others have grown, opened up, connected to each other. We see these practices not as an idyllic return to nature, but as a foregrounding of a certain type of living in nature without colonising it, and an invitation to rethink artistic work on more ecological principles, as well as an acceptance of fragility as a reason to plant life around. With: Carambach/ Adriana Chiruță, Sibiu county, Romania Cecălaca/Csekelaka Cultural Studio/ Oana Fărcaș, Cecălaca village, Mureș county, Romania Crețești Studio-Garden/ Delia Popa, Ilfov county, Romania Cucuieți Permaculture/ Otilia & Radu Boeru, Cucuieți Village, Călărași County, Romania Dom Jan Hálá cultural center/ Zuzana Janečková, Važec village, Tatra mountains, Slovakia Drenart/ Stoyan Dechev, Olivia Mihălțianu, Dren village, Pernik region, Bulgaria The Experimental Station for Research on Art and Life/ Dana Andrei, Eduard Constantin, Florian Niculae, Siliștea Snagovului village, Ilfov county, Romania The House of Light and Information/ Matei Bejenaru, Bârnova commune, Iași county, Romania Intersecția Residency/ Emanuela Ascari, Brădet village, Întorsura Buzăului commune, Covasna county, Romania Khata-Maysternya/House-Workshop/ Bogdan Velgan, Taras Grytsiuk, Olga Dyatel, Ekaterina and Olga Zarko, Alyona Karavai, Yulia Kniupa, Taras Kovalchuk, Magda Lapshyn, Anna Mygal, Sasha Moskovchuk, Svyat Popov, Tanya Sklyar, Natalia Trambovetska, Vilya and Ivanka Chupak, Babyn, Ivano-Frankivsk region, Ukraine LATERAL AIR/ Cristina Curcan, Lucian Indrei, at the crossroards between Mureșenii Bârgăului and Colibița, Bistrița-Năsăud county, Romania Muze. Gemüse Initiative/ Maria Balabaș & Vlad Mihăescu, Șomartin village, Sibiu county, Romania Rajka Orchard/ Martin Piacek, Győr-Moson-Sopron region, Hungary Rădești House/ Irina Botea Bucan & Jon Dean, Rădești village, Argeș county, Romania Reforesting Project/ Aris Papadopoulos, Candy Karra, Dora Zoumpa, Elena Novakovitc, Sotiris Tsiganos, Jonian Bisai, Vasilis Ntouros, Christina Reinhart, Klio Apostolaki, Lia Chamilothori, Kalentzi village, municipality of North Tzoumerka, Epirus, Greece Romanii de Jos Dendrological Park/ V. Leac, Vâlcea county, Romania Siliștea Future Studios/ Adelina Ivan, Ioana Gheorghiu, Virginia Toma, Ramon Sadîc, Robert Blaj, Vlad Brăteanu, Siliștea Snagovului village, Ilfov county, Romania Slon residencies/ META Cultural Foundation/ Raluca Doroftei, Slon Village, Cerasu Commune, Prahova County, Romania SOLAR Gallery/ Ariana Hodorcă & Albert Kaan, Gulia village, Dâmbovița county, Romania symbiopoiesis/ Andrei Nacu, Pădureni village, Iași county, Romania Watermelon Residency/ Daniela Pălimariu, Alexandru Niculescu, Bechet, Dolj county, Romania What Could Should Curating Do/ Biljana Ćirić, Gornja Gorevnica VILLAGE, Serbia Na záhradke [At the Garden] Gallery/ Oto Hudec, Košice, Slovakia Artistic initiatives in nature and in villages is part of a mapping of sustainable practices in rural Romania, developed in the frame of the project C4R – Cultures for Resilience in 2022-2023. Iterations: Halfway to Paradise. Hybrid seminar, Bucharest, January 2022 (5 initiatives) It´s risky to let they see you alive and almost frangible. Screening at One World Romania film festival, May 2022 (14 initiatives) Now the Impulse is to Live! Exhibition at the Order of Architects, Bucharest, July 2022 (17 initiatives) Now the Impulse is to Live! Edition Sofia. Exhibition at Toplocentrala, Sofia, September 2022 (20 initiatives) Now the Impulse is to Live! Timisoara Edition. Exhibition at Riverside Pavilion / Children’s Park, Timisoara, co-organised with Minitremu Association, July 2023 (22 initiatives) Publication editing: Raluca Voinea, Adelina Luft, Dana Andrei Video montage and publication design: Eduard Constantin

November 2023 At the end of the mapping of artistic initiatives in the countryside, realised by tranzit.ro in the frame of C4R project, we invited London-based artist Andrei Nacu to spend a short residency in Bucharest and at the Experimental Station for Research on Art and Life in Silistea Snagovului, as a wrap up of this stage of the mapping and to open up future collaboration with Andrei. Andrei has initiated symbiopoiesis, which we included in our survey. Situated in Pădureni village, Iași county, Romania, symbiopoiesis is a site for experimentation, learning on one hand and unlearning on the other. Situated in a transition zone, at the edge of the forest, in a small village called Pădureni, 20 km South from Iași, a city on the Eastern edge of the European Union, this project came into being with no initial great plan or well-defined strategy, but more as an urge and a need to hide, to root, to grow, to sense, to react, to adapt, to regenerate, to survive... Finding ways of changing today’s mythology to align with the symbiotic reality of our planet involves reshaping societal beliefs, narratives, and values to reflect a more interconnected relationship with the environment. symbiopoiesis aims to explore interspecies relations through cohabitation and interaction, with the hope of discovering new ways (or re-discovering old ones) of practising care and mutual modulation. As Lynn Margulis describes it, symbiosis is “simply the living together in physical contact of organisms of different species. Partners in symbiosis, fellow symbionts abide in the same place at the same time, literally touching each other or even inside each other.” At the end of the residency we asked Andrei to share with us a few thoughts on resilience in relation to art and the land. How would you define resilience in relation to artistic practice? I have an ambivalent relation with the idea of resilience in general. On one hand it’s fascinating how beings and ecosystems are capable to adapt to change and absorb disturbance. Nonetheless, as any organism has some material limitations, the limits of resilience are also real and sometimes it’s very hard, or even impossible to maintain the fragile equilibrium necessary for achieving it. One should not praise resilience, without questioning the source of adversity. Also, I think it’s very important to avoid the emphasis on individual adaptability as it has the potential to normalize structurally induced suffering. There is always this risk to obscure injustices or structural violence with an individual strengths based approach. We first need a form of collective subjectivity to achieve and inform each-other’s resilience as a group, as a complete ecosystem rather than as individuals on their own. Everything is interconnected and we must understand that, as self-preservation over class struggle means fascism, in the same way, self-preservation over group survival means death. Furthermore, there might be situations when a revolution is preferable rather than the mirage of never-ending resilience that inevitable leads to exhaustion. Art is always political, so any artistic practice would have to define its resilience in relation to politics. The resilience in one’s artistic practice I think it means finding ways to justify the necessity or the usefulness of one’s practice in a political struggle that would then help the resilience of our entire ecosystem. Could you list some of the motivations that determined you to start symbiopoesis? I've long been captivated by plants and devoted five years to studying Horticulture and Landscape Design for my first BA. Although I haven't actively practiced in these fields since graduating 15 years ago, the dream of having access to a plot of land that I could share with friends and loved ones, where we could explore, experiment, and share companionship with plants and other beings has always lingered in my thoughts. The project emerged without a grand plan or a clearly defined strategy, but rather as an innate urge - an essential need to find solace but in the same time community, establish roots, grow, sense, react, adapt, regenerate, and ultimately survive... For a while, I was just exploring various locations trying to discover places that could inspire me, in order to better understand what I’m looking for exactly and also what are my limitations, and to find the right compromise with the available resources I had. Growing older, but also the experience of the pandemic only intensified these needs, making them more urgent and propelling me into action. At this point, my motivation stems from the aspiration for this space to serve as a platform where we can delve into interspecies relations through cohabitation and interaction. It's about coming together and discovering innovative methods (or rediscovering old ones) to practice care and foster a more sustainable way of life. What can artists bring as a specific difference in the broader discussion about the (re)turn to a closer attention to land, nature, sustainable living? Challenging today's mythology and finding ways to align with the symbiotic reality of our planet involves reshaping societal beliefs, narratives, and values to reflect a more interconnected relationship with the environment. In this process, artists could disrupt the hegemonic discourse, to (re)create dialog, conversations, and narratives, and to develop or rediscover the conceptual tools to work against the notion of nature as defined by modernity, which used it for creating categories like natural resources and human resources, just for the sole purpose of exploitation. I think that one of the most powerful things that artists can do is to imagine and render utopias. I strongly believe this is of most importance because once imagined, things are inevitably influencing reality, shaping it towards those possibilities. But envisioning radical, alternative ways to the current suicidal growth model would also need redefining the idea of sustainability from a holistic, ecological, anti-capitalist perspective. Imagining better worlds is the precondition for making them happen and this is where artists can play a vital role. Andrei Nacu (b. 1984) lives and works in London, U.K. and Iasi, Romania. In his creative practice he is using documentary photography, the family album and the photographic archive to create stories which analyze the junction between personal memory and social history. His most recent work includes video, installation and performance and focuses on the politics of representation and media archaeology. Currently he is working as a Photo Curator at the Royal Anthropological Institute, London. In 2013 he graduated with an MA in Documentary Photography from the University of Wales, Newport and previously studied Photography and Video at the George Enescu National University of Arts, Iasi, Romania.

Over the last decades, economic inequality and insecurity have only increased. There’s the financial capitalist economy as the key operator for this

An exhibition organised in the frame of the project C4R (Cultures for Resilience), by tranzit.ro, in collaboration with Atelier d'Architecture Autogérée (FR), Casco Art Institute (NL), Nethood (CH), in partnership with Minitremu Association (RO) and supported by the Creative Europe Program of the European Commission. 2 – 15 July 2023 Riverside Pavilion / Children’s Park Ion Creangă, Timișoara A research exhibition comprising documentation produced in the C4R activities, as well as artworks and documents related to a localised understanding of resilience. The first edition of the exhibition took place in July 2022 in Bucharest, moving to Sofia in September 2022 in an adapted version and with some works presented in premiere. The third edition in Timișoara shows a selection of works from the previous two editions, alongside new contributions that respond to the context of the project and to Minitremu Art Camp 8 intended for high-school students. The new iteration of the exhibition expands the different understandings of the concept of resilience – both related to nature’s regenerative (im)possibilities amidst the climate challenges of the current times, and to the different forms of organization in the rural and urban areas based on an ecological, sustainable and communitarian thinking and acting. Apart from the existing research related to mapping several ecologial farms in Romania, the video presentation of 20 more artistic initiatives in nature and the rural, the presentation in Timisoara includes new initiatives and artistic work from the region closer to Banat: Healthy Places, a co-design model for green and social regeneration of community spaces in Timisoara run by Studio Peisaj; a work by Nita Mocanu documenting the results of the spruce bark beetle invasion caused by draughts and destroying the forests in the Apuseni; or Andreea Medar & Mălina Ionescu’s long research into the accidental water leak in Racoti village which has created in time a mini-delta, being the main source of water supply for the local inhabitants. The exhibition is designed as an informative and learning space activated by the artists invited in the Minitremu Art Camp 8. Participants: * atelier d’architecture autogérée, r-urban, CASCO, nethood, Remix the commons, tranzit.ro; * Gilles Clément, Georgiana Strat; * Alex Axinte, Bogdan Iancu, Monica Stroe, Alexandru Vârtej; * GreenMogo, Legumim/ Gastronaut, Luca’s Farm, Nettle Garden, Țopa Farm, Soil and Soul, Seed Bank “Casa Semintelor”; * Delia Popa, Vlad Brăteanu, Eduard Constantin, Oto Hudec, Anamaria Pravicencu, Andreea Medar & Mălina Ionescu, Nita Mocanu, Roberta Curcă, Studio Peisaj, TerraPia; * Ovidiu Țichindeleanu; * Carambach (Adriana Chiruță), Cecălaca/Csekelaka Cultural Studio (Oana Fărcaș), Crețești Studio-Garden (Delia Popa), Cucuieti Permaculture (Otilia & Radu Boeru), The Dendrological Park Romanii de Jos (V. Leac), Drenart (Stoyan Dechev, Olivia Mihălțianu), The Experimental Station for Research on Art and Life (Dana Andrei, Edi Constantin, Valentin Florian Niculae), The House of Light and Information (Matei Bejenaru), Intersecția Residency (Emanuela Ascari), Jan Hála House (Zuzana Janečková), LATERAL AIR (Cristina Curcan, Lucian Indrei), Muze. Gemüse Initiative (Maria Balabaș & Vlad Mihăescu), The Rajka Orchard (Martin Piaček), Rădești House (Irina Botea Bucan & Jon Dean), Reforesting project (Vasilis Ntouros, Dora Zoumpa), Siliștea Future Studios (Adelina Ivan, Ioana Gheorghiu, Virginia Toma, Ramon Sadîc, Robert Blaj, Vlad Brăteanu), Slon Residency (META Cultural Foundation, Raluca Doroftei), Solar Gallery (Ariana Hodorcă & Albert Kaan), Watermelon Residency (Daniela Pălimariu, Alexandru Niculescu), Na záhradke Gallery (Oto Hudec), Khata-Maysternya/House-Workshop (Bogdan Velgan, Taras Grytsiuk, Olga Dyatel, Ekaterina and Olga Zarko, Alyona Karavai, Yulia Kniupa, Taras Kovalchuk, Magda Lapshyn, Anna Mygal, Sasha Moskovchuk, Svyat Popov, Tanya Sklyar, Natalia Trambovetska, Vilya and Ivanka Chupak); symbiopoiesis (Andrei Nacu). * Raluca Voinea. Curator for Timișoara edition: Adelina Luft In the framework of the C4R project, tranzit.ro has looked at practices that redefine the relationship with the countryside, with land and soil, with nature, with food and natural resources, with the rural communities and with people in the big cities who are looking for sustainable alternatives to their life styles. All the partners in this project have used a variety of tools: anthropological and cultural mapping, conferences, discussions and seminars as well as digital platforms, in order to highlight different forms of resilience in our societies, in the East, West and North of Europe, touching on issues from the circuit of organic food, to sustainable building materials, forms of commons and of governance, communities structured around ecological thinking and action, and not least artistic initiatives that seek for linking with nature and the countryside. Some of these different understandings of the concept of resilience will be reflected in the exhibition Now the impulse is to live! As part of a project that is still in progress, the exhibition offers a format for continuous reflection on the topics researched. Riverside Pavilion, situated in Ion Creangă Children’s Park in Timișoara was created following the idea to continue the public space into the building, without having any steps or obstacles, so that interior and exterior merge together. Minitremu Art Camp is a yearly summer camp intended for theoretical, real or vocational high school students and students in their first years of college. The project is supported by the EC's Creative Europe - Culture programme. ERSTE Foundation is the main partner of tranzit. The event is part of "Outside the school" a component of the Knowledge fields (along with Kinema Ikon, Asociatia Foc si Pară / Indecis and Association Doar Maine) part of the national cultural programme "Timișoara – European Capital of Culture in the year 2023" and is funded by the City of Timișoara, through the Center for Projects. Exhibition title and cover image from a material on Luca’s Farm, by Alex Axinte.

Platform is different. We combine art, activism, education and research in one organisation. This approach enables us to create unique projects driven by the need for social and ecological justice. Platform’s current campaigns focus on the social, economic and environmental impacts of the global oil industry. Our pioneering education courses, exhibitions, art events and book projects promote radical new ideas that inspire change. How we work is important to us. We operate through collective decision-making. Our team includes campaigners, artists and researchers who act together and with networks to achieve long-term, systemic goals. Everyone in Platform is committed to our core values of justice, solidarity, creativity and democracy. source text Photo: Platform London Photo: Platform London Photo: Sokari Douglas Camp, Battle Bus Memorial for Ken Saro Wiwa, 2005, acier inoxydable, 310 cm de haut, Courtesy Sokari Douglas Camp, © ADAGP, Paris

An exhibition organised in the frame of the project C4R (Cultures for Resilience), by tranzit.ro, in collaboration with Atelier d'Architecture Autogérée (FR), Casco Art Institute (NL), Nethood (CH) and in partnership with Toplocentrala (BG). 2 – 17 September 2022 Toplocentrala, 5 Emil Bersinski Street, Sofia, Bulgaria “The European Commission Joint Research Centre (EC-JRC) has warned that the current drought could be the worst in 500 years.” (Euronews, 10/08/2022) Some would equate resilience today with foolishness, utopianism, naïveté. For the world is falling apart in millions of incomprehensible pieces and apparently the realist contemplation of the disaster is all we are left with. For others yet, there are seeds to be collected and re-sowed, rainwater to be stored, communities to be invested in and cared for. We will live and we will see, as a proverb in Romania says. The propulsion for living seems to be the only solution to the mess around. Living means that the now makes sense, but this belief in the living is far from just indulging in a timeless now, it is an enacted form of hope. Some would call it resilience and associate it with skills and knowledges that have been around for long and keep resurfacing, upgraded following the challenge of the current times; or with trust in non-human species, which are most of the times doing their job in protecting each other much better than sophisticated and destructive chemicals produced in sealed labs; or they would simply see resilience as the bliss of sharing (crops, ideas, friends, predictions and uncertainties). Participants: * atelier d’architecture autogérée, r-urban, CASCO, nethood, Remix the commons, tranzit.ro; * Gilles Clément, Georgiana Strat; * Alex Axinte, Bogdan Iancu, Monica Stroe, Alexandru Vârtej; * GreenMogo, Legumim/ Gastronaut, Luca’s Farm, Nettle Garden, Țopa Farm, Soil and Soul, Seed Bank “Casa Semintelor”; * Vlad Basalici, Vlad Brăteanu, Adriana Chiruță, Eduard Constantin, Oto Hudec, Delia Popa, Sorin Popescu, Anamaria Pravicencu; * Ovidiu Țichindeleanu; * New Rural Agenda, Adelina Luft; * Carambach (Adriana Chiruță), Cecălaca/Csekelaka Cultural Studio (Oana Fărcaș), Crețești Studio-Garden (Delia Popa), Cucuieti Permaculture (Otilia & Radu Boeru), The Dendrological Park Romanii de Jos (V. Leac), Drenart (Stoyan Dechev, Olivia Mihălțianu), The Experimental Station for Research on Art and Life (Dana Andrei, Edi Constantin, Valentin Florian Niculae), The House of Light and Information (Matei Bejenaru), Intersecția Residency (Emanuela Ascari), Jan Hála House (Zuzana Janečková), LATERAL AIR (Cristina Curcan, Lucian Indrei), Muze. Gemüse Initiative (Maria Balabaș & Vlad Mihăescu), The Rajka Orchard (Martin Piaček), Rădești House (Irina Botea Bucan & Jon Dean), Reforesting project (Vasilis Ntouros, Dora Zoumpa), Siliștea Future Studios (Adelina Ivan, Ioana Gheorghiu, Virginia Toma, Ramon Sadîc, Robert Blaj, Vlad Brăteanu), Slon Residency (META Cultural Foundation, Raluca Doroftei), Solar Gallery (Ariana Hodorcă & Albert Kaan), Watermelon Residency (Daniela Pălimariu, Alexandru Niculescu), Na záhradke Gallery (Oto Hudec). A research exhibition comprising documentation produced in the C4R activities, as well as artworks and documents related to a localised understanding of resilience. The first edition of the exhibition took place in July 2022 in Bucharest and it is now moving to Sofia, in an adapted version, and with some works presented in premiere. In the framework of the C4R project, tranzit.ro has looked at practices that redefine the relationship with the countryside, with land and soil, with nature, with food and natural resources, with the rural communities and with people in the big cities who are looking for sustainable alternatives to their life styles. All the partners in this project have used a variety of tools: anthropological and cultural mapping, conferences, discussions and seminars as well as digital platforms, in order to highlight different forms of resilience in our societies, in the East, West and North of Europe, touching on issues from the circuit of organic food, to sustainable building materials, forms of commons and of governance, communities structured around ecological thinking and action, and not least artistic initiatives that seek for linking with nature and the countryside. Some of these different understandings of the concept of resilience are reflected in the exhibition Now the impulse is to live!. As part of a project that is still in progress, the exhibition offers a format for continuous reflection on the topics researched. CCA Toplocentrala is the new public cultural institute in Sofia, established in a close collaboration between the Sofia Municipality and the independent scene of contemporary art in Bulgaria. The centre provides a platform for performing arts and music and has an exhibition program, focused on contemporary art and its social, educational and community impact. The project is supported by the EC's Creative Europe - Culture programme. Exhibition title from a material on Luca’s Farm, by Alex Axinte Image: Zaharia Helinger: Watermelon, 1979, acrylic on cardboard. Presented by Watermelon Residency (Daniela Pălimariu, Alex Niculescu)

Halfway to Paradise A discussion about artistic initiatives’ (re)turn to nature. With: Adriana Chiruta, Irina Botea & Jon Dean, V. Leac, Daniela Palimariu, Delia Popa Sunday, 30 January 2022, 4 p.m. https://whereby.com/public-meetings An invented country for artists and scientists, in the region of Sibiu. A house-garden residency for artists and non-artists, in a village in Arges county. A small house and stripe of land for permaculture experiments, near the river Mures. A dendrology park near Horezu, dedicated to contemporary artists and writers. A residency for artists and watermelons in a small town in the south of the country, by the Danube. A studio with a greenhouse and a garden, not far from the south exit from Bucharest. These are just a few examples of spaces created by artists in natural settings, outside of the big cities, and it is a trend that has grown in the recent years, mirrored especially during the pandemic by a general interest in experimenting with life in the countryside. How can these artistic initiatives inspire more than a life-style, how can they inscribe themselves in a paradigm of understanding and living with nature rather than colonise it, how can they create communities that breathe in a different rhythm than that of precarity and hyper-consumption that characterises much of the daily life in contemporary cities?! This is hopefully the first in a series of discussions on these topics, and an attempt to connect similar initiatives and thus strengthen the models they establish. Adriana Chiruta lives and works in her favorite life-art project, a contemporary art eco-laboratory under construction since 2014, in the region of Sibiu, called Carambach, an “invented” country for artists, scientists, nature and human rights activists. She is an artist with hybrid practices. A performing arts professional, theatre director and dance passionate, with a philosophy background, she enjoys taking post-conceptual walks through different mediums (sound, video, text, etc.). Structured as performative installations, her works are meant to direct the viewers senses’ from the exterior art objects, toward themselves, as subjects of art invited to occupy the stage of their own life, personally, socially and politically. Irina Botea Bucan has developed an artist-educator-researcher methodology that questions dominant socio-political ideas and centralizes human and non-human agency as a vehicle for meaning. Jon Dean has been working in the overlapping fields of community-based participatory arts and education for over thirty years. Apart from their individual practices, they have also been collaborating on educational, artistic and cultural projects since the early 1990s. Due to their shared belief in the importance of working in non-traditional 'art spaces' they decided to literally build upon previous experiences through developing a house-garden residency for artists and non-artists (human and non-human) in the village of Radesti, Arges county. Since the beginning of 2019 they have renovated a small barn and worked alongside a wide range of local residents as well as invited guests to foster new collaborations. V. Leac is a poet and a performer in his or his friends’ art and life actions, exhibitions, films. Since 2010, he created a place of resistance, a space that survived the erosion from the river Mures, in the village of Bodrog, Arad county. Together with artists and other people from Arad and Timisoara, passionate for permaculture, they used the stripe of land between the small house and the river to create a garden with vegetables, medicinal plants, fruit, wild herbs, following a concept of multiple natures. Since 2020 he started a new project in Romanii de Jos, Valcea county, a dendrology park in which the trees planted there carry the names of his friends, artists and poets. Daniela Palimariu is an artist and a co-founding member of Sandwich collective. Sandwich started in 2016 as an artist-run space and is constantly expanding and reinventing itself. In 2022, a new project imagined by Sandwich is to be inaugurated: the Watermelon Residency, in the small town of Bechet, Dolj county, an important Danube port and close to the sandy region of Dabuleni, famous in Romania for its watermelons production. The residency programme is planned for local and international artists, who are invited to propose either research projects or site-specific works for the place. Delia Popa is a visual artist who researches the almost imperceptible space between discourse and reality, representation and control, while she constantly questions man’s insistence on detaching oneself from other animals. She depicts humans under zoomorphic forms, unveiling their cruelty towards other species, she endows plants with anthropomorphic traits and draws parallels between her work as an artist and her work as a gardener. Since 2015, she builds and uses her studio and cultivates plants in the village of Cretesti, Ilfov county, in her grandparents’ house and garden. The discussion is organised in a hybrid form, with the participants gathering in person and the public invited to join online, by accessing this link: https://whereby.com/public-meetings. * The discussion takes place in Romanian language. Host: Edi Constantin (the Experimental Station for Research) Moderator: Raluca Voinea (tranzit.ro/Bucuresti) The residency of Adriana Chiruta in Bucharest and this discussion are complementary activities to Regenerative-Reliable-Resourceful, the mapping of resilient practices in the Romanian countryside, in the field of food production and distribution, construction materials and cultural initiatives, that tranzit.ro develops in the frame of C4R project and of the Experimental Station for Research on Art and Life. *The platform https://whereby.com/public-meetings can be accessed directly from an internet browser, preferably Chrome or Firefox. It doesn’t require the installation of an application or the creation of an account.

Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons envisions better ways of living together through practicing art and the commons. Through co-exploration and study with collective art projects as well as organizational experiments, our projects grow from critical questions and radical imagination – forming community and together generating art and knowledge as common resources. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Do you believe that to transform yourself is to transform the world? Has cooking, singing, dancing, gardening, healing, dreaming, and making things with other people been part of your transformation? If so, you already know about art and the commons. The commons can be described as the natural and cultural resources held in common by a community. For example, community gardens, mutual aid networks, and open source software are all examples of the commons. The commons requires a collaborative process, which we call “commoning,” based on shared ethics and values such as diversity, equity, pluralism, and sustainability. Art is an imaginative way of doing and being, which connects, heals, opens, and moves people into the new social visions. Art is in fact inherent to the commons, as they are shared resources to keep the culture of community alive. In turn, the commons may well sustain art. With art and the commons we can draw a worldview beyond the divides of private and public, to shape together a new paradigm of living together as “we” desire - be it decolonial, post-capitalist, matriarchal, solidarity economies -- we name it! Art and the Commons are two key practices for Casco Art Institute. We see them as both tools and visions for better ways of living together. Casco Art Institute works for this vision of art and the commons by creating a space, or “Casco” meaning in Dutch a space of basic structure for change, for co-exploration and study with collaborative art projects as well as organizational experiments. We co-develop collaborative art projects out of critical questions and dreams. They are process-based and place specific, forming community and generating art and knowledge as common resources, together. Organizational experiments take place with all of these projects, including Casco Art Institute itself. We dream of offering an example of a commonly desirable institution of art and the commons that embodies diversity, equity, pluralism, and sustainability. All of the collaborative art projects and organizational processes we engage in are open to active participation from anyone who shares values around the commons and responsibility. Anyone with curiosity can experience multiple activities and publicly available common resources from the projects, in person, and in community with Casco. We especially welcome those who seek change in their life as well as in the world while feeling vulnerable alone or within other institutions. Since Casco Art Institute was born and has grown in Utrecht, we are committed to people and communities in Utrecht. We also engage with communities elsewhere, especially outside of western Europe, recognizing the world is intricately connected and the commons transcends national borders. Would you like to learn more about what Casco does? You are welcome to visit the website to find out more. REPRESENTATION