Living Content: Salonul de Proiecte invites contemporary artists to present new works under the theme “Rural/Urban: Photography and the Contradictions of Modernization in Romania”, encouraging them to draw inspiration from the Mihai Oroveanu's Photographic archive. Tell me, how do you select the contemporary artists involved and what potential do you see in working with the archive?

Salonul de Proiecte: We select artists based on their ability to engage critically and imaginatively with the Mihai Oroveanu Image collection, and whose practices reflect a willingness to challenge and reinterpret the archive’s themes through contemporary lenses. 

These interpretations have immense potential to bridge past and present, offering fresh perspectives on modernization’s complexities. By transforming the archive into an active resource, the works stimulate a dialogue around urbanization, memory, and identity, resonating both locally and globally. The archive fosters a deeper engagement with Romania’s socio-political history, while in a wider context it contributes to relevant conversations around critical image culture and cultural heritage.

LC: Looking at Adrian Ganea’s exhibition, in what ways does his interpretation deepen or expand on the project's theme “Rural/Urban: Photography and the Contradictions of Modernization in Romania”?

SdP: The exhibition has an approach which steers away from conventional, image-based presentations. It is also the first time when an artist is given carte blanche to propose a solo-show departing from the archive. Drawing from the  Oroveanu Image Collection, Ganea addresses modernization, progress and their contradictions through a plethora of scientific, historical, socio-political, and cultural references such as the technological advancement of the Industrial Revolution, the Luddite movement in 19th century England, the politics of the Eastern Bloc, Bertold Brecht’s anticapitalist play, In the Jungle of Cities, or Greco-Roman mythology. Questioning the manner in which an artist can interact with such a vast photographic collection, Ganea reflects on old and new materialisms, highlighting the unsettling implications of growth and progress.

LC: What has been the biggest challenge you’ve faced in interpreting and mediating this archive through other artists? what about a pleasant surprise in this process?

SdP: The biggest challenge has been balancing the archive’s historical specificity with the diversity of artistic approaches, trying not to reiterate the same methods of engagement.

We worked with artists who displayed an interest towards research, in the sense of investigating the specific content of certain photographs (Adrian Ghenie), proposing a meta-reflection on the status of the archive and of its ordering system (Yasmine Eid-Sabbagh, Andrei Nacu), highlighting the various junction points between their own conceptual practices and the revelations brought about by the encounter with various images (Susanne Kriemann, Matts Leiderstam) or meditating on the intersection between personal and collective memories and experiences (Mihai Mihalcea, Bjarne Bare). The results were always surprising, unexpected, and widely different from one another. However, these were all smaller-scale artistic interventions within a pre-existing framework.

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"Unholy Machine" is curated by Salonul de proiecte, a program focused on research and production, which promotes Romanian contemporary art through exhibitions, publications, presentations and debates, while positioning it in dialogue with the regional and international context.

Salonul de proiecte was founded in 2011 in the framework of MNAC Anexa and since 2016 it functions as an independent art space located in Palatul Universul, Bucharest.

Read the full Press Release.