Coatings. Videoart Garden

14-17.09.2023
Cazarma U Timișoara
Part of Timișoara – European Capital of Culture in 2023

Co-curators: Larisa Crunțeanu & Cristina Stoenescu

The selection of films curated by artist Larisa Crunțeanu and curator Cristina Stoenescu focused on artistic expressions in partnership with local and international organizations. The selected works featured guest-artworks as well as films submitted in a regional open-call. Among the invited artists and curators were Joanna Zielińska, Antonina and Bogumila Nowacka, Alper Turan, Barbora Kleinhamplová, Tereza Stejskalová with Georgeta Corca, Dafna Maimon, Marie-Ève Lafontaine, Nguyen & Transitory, Jasmina al Qaisi.

The four-day event of films, talks and performances explored the theme of coatings, conceptually connecting the immaterial, ephemeral nature of time-based media with the textured body of paint varnish or sculptural surfaces, further underlining the cross-media ethos of the program. Coating is not quite the body, but rather a flat surface following the curves of 3D space, describing a state of in-between, a surface tension, texture and exposure to external forces. From industrial products to agricultural produce, from clothing to landscape design, from language to paralimbic cortex, everything has a surface that holds it together, gives it a certain look and makes it deal with the outside in a certain manner. Likewise, the films featured in the selection alternated between surface and depth, narrative and visual experiments, both abstract and reflective of the format of film-making itself, as an epiderma of visual contact.

Each evening began with special guest-talks on contemporary art perspectives on the encounter between performance, video art and cinema, either on an institutional level, such as the exhibition formats at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp, discussed by Joanna Zielińska, or on the level of independent initiatives, such as the online and itinerant video exhibitions platform Protocinema, presented by curator Alper Turan. The talks were mainly aimed at students and emerging artists, as well as at a non-specialist audience interested in contemporary visual art, with introductory notions on the links between cinema and video art, or between performance and moving images in international contexts. The program continued each day with a live performance organized just before the video art screenings, starting with the artistic duo WIDT, Antonina Nowacka and Bogumila Nowacka, who proposed an encounter between live image modulation and instrumental and vocal experimentation. The next three days offered different approaches to the concept of performance, from performative readings to experimental sound concerts with Barbora Kleinhamplová, Tereza Stejskalová, Georgeta Corca, Nguyen & Transitory, Jasmina al Qaisi. Renowned artist Dafna Maimon was also present in Timisoara for a special Q&A after the screening of “Leaky Teeth”, a video work that perfectly illustrates her practice, known for its humor and the way it manages to delve into complex issues by invoking the absurd in our modern lives.

The program sought to dissolve the membranes between reality and meta-fictions, as well as to bring forth the almost palpable texture of several works made on film, such as the title “Rite of Spring” by Mona Vătămanu and Florin Tudor, or the topographies manipulated through collage techniques, both analog and digital, in titles such as “Stone of Hell” by Tekla Aslanishvili, “The Flies Hum Thy Name” by Cătălina Bucos & Ada Kopaz or “Volcano: What Does a Lake Dream? ” by Diana Vidrascu. Within the sculptural program of the U Barracks, the Coatings theme-event aimed to liberate the moving image from both the gallery and the cinema space and to rematerialize it in outdoor screenings, where video art can be seen in a different relation of details, textures and narrative and non-narrative paths on a large screen format.

The initiators of the project, Larisa Crunțeanu, Anca Hrab and Cristina Stoenescu, together with the technical and management team formed by Laura Berlinschi, Diana Cercel, Ioana Gonțea, Ligia Soare, Tudor Groza, Andrei Drăgan, have worked closely with Ingrid Ene for the communication strategy, implemented through the graphic design by Sorina Popescu and the event photography by Remus Dăescu.

Full schedule*:
Thursday, 14 September, 18:00 – 00:00
18:00-19:00 – Talk, Joanna Zielenska, art historian, writer and performance curator
19:30-20:30 – LIVE Performance WIDT (artists duo: Antonina Nowacka, Bogumila Nowacka)
21:00-23:30 – Screening schedule:
• Anemone,by Ioana Țurcan and Gergana Ivanova (5.54min)
• DEBRI, by Antonio Hofmeister Ribeiro, Maru Mushtrieva, Liudmila Savelyeva (23.31min)
• Rite of Spring, by Mona Vătămanu & Florin Tudor (7.51min)
• Căutându-l pe Brâncuși, by Sergiu Sas (4.51min)
• 13 WAYS OF LOOKING AT A BLACKBIRD, by Ana Vaz (31min)
• Freudian Slip, by Mon Sisu Satrawaha (14.52min)
• Terror Nullius, by artist duo Soda Jerk (53.47min)

Friday, 15 September, 18:00 – 00:00
18:00-19:00 – Talk, Alper Turan, Adjunct Curator at Protocinema
19:30-20:30 – LIVE Performance artists: Barbora Kleinhamplová, Tereza Stejskalová, Georgeta Corca
21:00-23:30 – Screening schedule:
• Leeky Teeth, by Dafna Maimon, special Q&A in the presence of the artist (60min)
• Identity Tissues, by Natasha Nedelkova (12.32min)
• Non-places, by Ola Skowrońska (6.56min)
• Arrival, de Kleoniki Stanich (13.31min)
• A Sort of Vision, by Mihai Păcurar, Ioana Hogman and Vlaicu Golcea  (14.43min)
• Vampire Times, by Irene Reisner (13.27min)
• Mobiotrope, by Aleksei Martyniuk (1.26min)
• Carcass N2, by Vitaly Yankovy (2.40min)

Saturday, 16 September, 18:00 – 00:00
18:00-19:00 – Talk, Marie-Ève Lafontaine, artistic director Eva Kahan Foundation
19:30-20:30 – LIVE Performance artists: Nguyen & Transitory
21:00-23:30 – Screening schedule:
• The Debt, The Epilogue of Long Friendship, by Jiří Žák (20.50min)
• Stone of Hell, by Tekla Aslanishvili (24.23min)
• Who Is Afraid of Ideology? Part IV Reverse Shot, by Marwa Arsanios (35min)
• Vreau să sparg sera, by Teona Galgoțiu (20.44min)
• NATURE MORTE, by Nikola Stoyanov (5.20min)
• Source, Źródło, by Cristina Ferreira-Szwarc (6.50min)
• fill in the blanks, by Anna Baranowsky & Vlad Brăteanu (11.05min)
• The Stroker, by Pilvi Takala (15.16min)

Sunday, 17 September, 18:00 – 00:00
18:00-19:00 – Talk, Elena Sorokina, curator, writer and lecturer, co-founder of the Initiative for Practices and Visions of Radical Care (with Natasa Petresin-Bachelez)
19:30-20:30 – LIVE Performance artist: Jasmina Al-Qaisi
21:00-23:30 – Screening schedule:
• The Flies Hum Thy Name, by Cătălina Bucos & Ada Kopaz (9.45min)
• Sleeper’s Manifesto, by Tereza Stejskalová & Barbora Kleinhamplová (11min)
• Circle, by Juliette Hüsler (2.36min)
• When Flamingos Fall from the Sky, by Dragoș Hanciu (15.34min)
• SEEKING PATTERNS, by Dagmar Schürrer (10min)
• A.I. made me do it: Ophelia, by Gioula Papadopoulou (2.23min)
• Myst, by Arthur Debert (8.41min)
• The Enchanted ménagerie, by Giulia Savorani (6min)
• This makes me wanna predict the past, by Cana Bilir-Meier (16min)
• Volcano: What Does a Lake Dream?, by Diana Vidrascu (21min)The performative events and discussions with the guests will take place in the English language, while the screened films will be accompanied by Romanian subtitles.

Partners: Interart TRIADE Foundation, Goethe-Institut Bucharest, German Cultural Center Timișoara, Polish Institute Bucharest, French Institute Bucharest, Austrian Cultural Forum Bucharest, Still in Belgrade, NGO Aesop Belgrade, Manekino, CODRU Urban Garden

Media Partners: Acoperişul de Sticlă, Aivi Media Hub, Cinemap, curatorial.ro, filme-carti.ro, Glamour, IQads, Modernism, MovieNews.ro, Munteanu, Revista Arta, RFI Romania, Radio Romania Cultural, SMARK, Zile și Nopți

The project is part of the national cultural programme “Timișoara – European Capital of Culture in 2023” and is funded through the Grow Timișoara 2023 programme, implemented by the Center for Projects Timișoara, with funds allocated from the state budget, through the budget of the Ministry of Culture.