Personal space
Performance with Nicoleta Moise, Iulia Mocanu, Alexandra Sandu, 2013
A happening, with a duration of 15 minutes, was performed in front of the subway station Romană, Buchares. The performance is a representation of our own space in the public means of transport and the obvious violation of certain rules of urbanity. We represent the minimum personal space dedicated to an individual, established at the international level to be at least 45 cm, in the form of 4 squares on the ground.
The squares were overlapping, crisscrossing as in any busy public space. We began to move, each trying to carry out a personal activity; amplifying our movements and intervening more than we supposed to in the intimate space of the other. This interference is usually carried out in an intrusive manner, disregarding the comfort of others, disregarding any personal space, and in many others being abusive towards others, especially women.
THE DARK SISTERS IN BUCHAREST
Performance with Irina Gheorghe, Cătălina Gubandru, Anastasia Jurescu, Alexandra Ivanciu, Gabriela Mateescu, Nicoleta Moise, Dorothee Neumann, 2016
For 2 days, we discovered the streets of Bucharest, making our presence noticed. We wanted to experience our body’s relationship with the city, and we went on exploring different spaces. First, we met at University Square and we formed pairs. The goal was to explore the city just by sound, being vulnerable and trusting an unknown partner (we were not close friends, we just met some of us).
Our second stop was the Lake of the Mill (Lacul Morii in Romanian) where we studied the site, and knowing its mysterious background, we decided to do a site-specific action.
The lake is a reservoir on the river Dâmbovița created to protect the city from floods. It was built between 1985 and 1986 and is the biggest one in Bucharest, at 246 hectares. Because it was built in a cemetery, people started saying that this place was cursed, and that the spirits of the dead haunt the surroundings. To build the dam, they decided that the cemetery should be moved and that the church of Saint Nicholas would be destroyed. According to the legends, the corpses were supposed to be moved until a fixed date, but because a lot of the relatives were not found, the bulldozers just went and dug through the corpses. The church was demolished on the day of the feast of Saint Constantin and Elena. So according to the stories that emerged, over time, parts of the people buried there appeared in the water and the fishermen say that they hear strange sounds in the night. Also, there are a lot of cases of drowning and suicides in the water.
So, we lay down dressed in black on the cement surrounding the lake in the sun, where people tend to stay in the sun to tan, remembering all the bodies that were still on the bottom of the lake.
