THE PRESENCE IS MANDATORY

As a follow up to our performance Blind reading, we were invited by Ioana Ciocan to be part of her curatorial project 25 years after. The presence is mandatory is a performance/installation about the flawed educational system in Romania, where high school graduates are encouraged to sign up to as many colleges and universities as possible to make sure they end up studying somewhere. The idea of a gap year is completely unacceptable in most Romanian homes, and students end up trapped in random carriers just because there is so much shame around the fact of not getting into a university.

Description

The performance happened in a dark room. The walls were filled with thousands of papers of graduation test results and messages were written with glow in the dark paint. These messages depict phrases most Romanian parents shout when it comes to their children getting a college degree:

How much tutoring I put in you!

You need to have a university diploma!

I offer you all the conditions!

A sound installation tells the viewers about the artist`s personal incursions in the educational system and every once in a while their names would be called out loud in a row. Each of the artists answered by turning on flashlights and searching for their names in the endless list of graduation.