Conference
Urban Body – Human Body
Urban Body – Human Body
Bridging Heritage and Contemporary Art
Faculty of Arts and Design
West University of Timisoara, Romania
The Faculty of Arts and Design, West University of Timisoara, and the Center for Curatorial Research, Art History and Criticism, Heritage Studies (CICASP) invite you to attend the International Conference Urban Body – Human Body. Bridging Heritage and Contemporary Art.
Theorists, artists, and architects interested in how contemporary arts and historic environments are connected will present their research. As the built heritage and the contemporary arts are valuable ingredients of a lively and healthy cultural environment, it is important to find ways to accommodate both their specificities. Even more, they can mutually potentiate and complement each other, leading to more lively and inclusive cities.
We welcome you to attend the presentations on the following topics:
Day 1: November 27
08.30-9.00 Participants registration
9.00-9.30 Welcome speech
Diana Andreescu/ Dean of The Faculty of Arts and Design, West University of Timișoara
Andreea Lazea/ Head of Visual Arts Department, President of CICASP
PANEL 1
09.30-11.30 Moderator Andreea Lazea
Anne Pfautsch/ Freelance art historian and curator/ Inside Other Spaces. Environments by Women Artists 1956-1976 – A feminist immersion?
Dana Catona/ Faculty of Arts and Design, West University of Timișoara/ Human Body and Public Space – Traces and Memory
Cristina Ursache /National University of Arts „George Enescu”, Iași/ Rethinking the Body – Curating the Human Form in Contemporary Visual Art Exhibitions
Gabriela Robeci/ Faculty of Arts and Design, West University of Timișoara/Temporary Bodies in the Underground Time-Space Continuum
11:30-12:00 Coffee break
PANEL 2
12.00-14.00 Moderator Maria Sârbu
Maksym Kozlov/ École des Beaux-Arts de Nantes – Saint-Nazaire/ The Military Socialist Heritage and its Public Identity
Tijana Kačarević/ Faculty of Arts and Design, Megatrend University in Belgrade/ Cultural Heritage as a Creative Drive in Contemporary Photography
Liliana Mercioiu Popa/ Faculty of Arts and Design, West University of Timișoara/ Ways of Building as an Integral Part of Nature
Andreea Lazea/ Faculty of Arts and Design, West University of Timișoara/Cultural Heritage and Contemporary Creation – Possible Relationships
14.00-15.30 Break
PANEL 3
15.30-17.30 Moderator Gabriela Robeci
Alexandra Tășală, Titus Vlase , Gabriela Vlase, Ionela-Amalia Bradu, Silvia Trion, Luisa- Maria Palade, Ana Diuța, Ilie Matei Bujancă, Iustina Bănceanu/ West University of Timișoara/ Pigment Authentication Methods for Contemporary Artworks
Sânziana Gheorghe/ Faculty of Arts and Design, West University of Timișoara/ Redefining European Heritage: Digital Interventions and Immersive Art in Historic Spaces
Andreea-Delia Buzilă/ Faculty of Arts and Design, West University of Timișoara/ Micropop and the Light in the Fridge
Mădălin Mărienuț/ Faculty of Arts and Design, West University of Timișoara/ Wounded Light
Day 2: November 28
PANEL 4
10.30- 13.00 Moderator Liliana Mercioiu Popa
Maria Sârbu/ Faculty of Arts and Design, West University of Timișoara/ Romanian Contemporary Art Challenging Architecture, Urbanism, and Monuments
Corina Nani/ Faculty of Arts and Design, West University of Timișoara/ Street Art Between Discourse and Action in Public Space
Mihai Toth/ Faculty of Arts and Design, West University of Timișoara/ Under the Bridge Is a Story
Justyna Orlowska/ Freelance visual artist/ How the History of a Place Affects the Artist and the Artistic Work?
Veronica Toma/ Faculty of Arts and Design, West University of Timișoara/ The Ivy House (Casa cu Iederă), a Model of Urban Regeneration
13.00-14.30 Break
14.30-15.30
Gallery visit – Kunsthalle Bega
The language of the conference is English.
Venue: Mansarda Gallery, Faculty of Arts and Design, 4 Oituz, Timișoara
CONTACT
cicasp@e-uvt.ro
Anne Pfautsch
Freelance Art Historian & Curator
Dr Anne Pfautsch is a freelance art historian, curator and lecturer. In 2024 she was a fellow at the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte, which also awarded her the Jutta-Held-Preis 2023 together with the Stiftung Kritische Kunst- und Kulturwissenschaften for her dissertation ‘Ostkreuz – Agentur der Fotografen: Tracing the Legacy of the German Democratic Republic in Post-Socialist Photography and Exhibition Making’. From 2022-23 she worked as a curatorial fellow at the Haus der Kunst in Munich. From 2019-2021 she participated in the Getty Foundation’s Connecting Art Histories programme on ‘Gender Politics and the Art of European Socialist States’, led by Prof Dr Agata Jakubowska. Anne is an associate lecturer at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and previously taught at Kingston University, London. She publishes in journals, exhibition catalogues and feminist archives, including Miejsce, Humanities and Art and Politics. Anne is currently preparing her postdoctoral project entitled ‘Dritte Generation Ost’. The Perpetuation of an East German-Ness in Photographic Practices after the Wende. Her research interests include photography, cultural and gender politics in late and post-socialism, memory and identity after 1989, and horizontal art history in Central and Eastern Europe.
Dana Catona
Professor & Visual Artist Faculty of Arts and Design, West University of Timișoara
Daniela Catona is a visual artist and poet (born in 1967, in Timișoara), a graduate of U.A.D. from Cluj-Napoca. Currently senior lecturer at the Faculty of Arts and Design, West University of Timisoara. Initiator of the Pend project within the Faculty of Arts and Design, space for interaction between artists and students. Participates in exhibitions with ceramic, textile, painting and graphic works and is concerned with the connections between the visual and the literary medium and the new paradigms of contemporary ceramics.
Cristiana Ursache
PhD Candidate & Curator National University of Arts „George Enescu" Iași
Cristiana Ursache is a researcher and curator based in Iași. She holds a bachelor’s and master’s degree in theories and practices of visual arts from the “George Enescu” University of Arts in Iași, and since 2023, she has been pursuing a PhD on curatorial practices in Romania from 2000 to the present at the same university. In the past, she studied at institutions in Spain and Switzerland, including the Escuela de Arte de Sevilla and the Zurich University of the Arts. In the summer of 2022, she worked as a cultural mediator for the Romanian Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale and in 2024 she collaborated with Listval Gallery in Iceland. She has curated exhibitions both in Romania and abroad, featuring artists such as Ștefan Câlția, Claudiu Ciobanu, Sorin Ilfoveanu, Miruna Radovici, and Radu-Mihai Tănasă, among others.
Gabriela Robeci
Research Assist PhD & Art Historian Faculty of Arts and Design, West University of Timișoara
Gabriela Robeci is a research assistant at the Faculty of Arts and Design at the West University of Timișoara. Her main area of expertise is East-European alternative art created under socialism. Subsidiary research topics include environmental-nature art, arte paupera, installations, and site-specific art. Articles published in local art magazines and research journals showcase her interest in such themes. Furthermore, mediating art to the contemporary public has been one of her focuses. She has exercised her interest as a cultural mediator at the Art Encounters Biennial and as a curator for contemporary art created by generations who studied under socialism, but who made a career after 1989. A member of the Artists Union, she has been working with the T40 young artists’ group to understand, exhibit, and write about the most recent cultural practices in Timișoara. Some of her most important publications include The Dynamics of Artistic Appropriation Behind the Iron Curtain; Investigative Creativity, Creative Projects by Timișoara Artists: Miki Velciov And Renée Renard; Sensory Interventions In Timișoara’s Art Hiperestezia; Naturing Medar-Ionescu Art; Visual Marks of Gender in the Art of Ana Lupaș.
Maksym Kozlov
Artist & Art Academy Student École des Beaux-Arts de Nantes - Saint-Nazaire
Maksym Kozlov is a Ukrainian artist based in La Baule-Escoublac on the western coast of France, working with spatial mediums. His interests are deeply connected to the plasticity of history, the metabolism of trauma, and the public representation of power. Following his studies at the Fine Arts School of Nantes Saint-Nazaire, his practice has grown around the themes of landscape, public art, and approaches to territory. Maksym intervenes in the space of contemporary art to experiment with the idea of utilizing creative economy for military purposes, often resulting in success—either in a direct sense or as a new form of language production. His projects have been published in international magazines, including Zeit Magazine, Kajet, Calvert, Society, Bird in Flight, and WePresent. His public interventions have taken place in Ukraine, Estonia, and France.
Tijana Kačarević
Assistant Professor & Visual Artist Faculty of Arts and Design, Megatrend University in Belgrade
Tijana Kačarević, b. 1993 in Belgrade. After getting a diploma in conservation and restoration of cultural goods, I decided to move forward from traditional artistic media to contemporary photography and digital visual arts, in which domain I am actively exploring and exhibiting. My artistic work is mainly oriented around “collecting” social phenomena or heritage which I show to viewer without suggestion. Alongside my artistic practice, I currently teach at Faculty of arts and design in Belgrade, where I have an opportunity to support young artists in cognition and manifestation of their own creative sensibilities.
Liliana Mercioiu Popa
Associate Lecturer PhD Faculty of Arts and Design, West University of Timișoara
Born on July 20, 1975 in Târgu-Jiu. He lives and works in Timisoara. In 1998 he graduated from the Faculty of Arts and Design, Painting Department (prof. Constantin Flondor’s class), from Timișoara, and in 2000 he graduated from advanced studies in the same specialization. Since 1999, he has been teaching painting at the Faculty of Arts and Design in Timisoara. In 2008 he defended his doctorate in Visual Arts with the thesis Poetic Arts in the Plastic Art of the 20th Century, (coordinator Prof. Cristian-Robert Velescu). Organizes exhibitions/interventions with students in dedicated spaces (Timco Hall, Theresia Bastion, French Cultural Institute in Timișoara, Atelier 030202 in Bucharest), alternative (ELBA Factory) or public (Timişene Arts Festival, P-ţa Unirii or Botanic Park, in Timișoara) ). Mast Square P-ța/Novi Sad/Serbia). Works with with Timișoara artistic groups IN-FORMAT (founding member in 2001), Noima (exhibitor in 2013–2014) and Avantpost (member since 2015).
Andreea Lazea
Lecturer PhD Faculty of Arts and Design, West University of Timișoara
Andreea Lazea teaches courses such as Aesthetics, Cultural Heritage – actors and practices, Critical concepts in modern and contemporary art, Art and artifact – concepts, practices, institutions. Her research focuses on social and political aspects of the cultural heritage selection, protection and promoting, as well as on the relationship between cultural heritage and innovation. She is also working on the topic of public art, approached from the perspectives of both art history and social sciences. Andreea Lazea organized two international conferences at the Faculty of Arts and Design: Art, Memory and Identity (2019) and Art, Society and Politics in (Post) Socialism (2014). She is currently working on the innovation values of cultural heritage.
Alexandra Tășală, Titus Vlase , Gabriela Vlase, Ionela-Amalia Bradu, Silvia Trion, Luisa- Maria Palade, Ana Diuța, Ilie Matei Bujancă, Iustina Bănceanu
CR-CERC Regional Centre for Research and Expertise in Conservation and Restoration, Faculty of Arts and Design, West University of Timișoara
The mission of the Regional Center for Research and Expertise in the Field of Conservation-Restoration of Cultural Heritage is to initiate, develop and promote research and academic projects in the field of conservation-restoration studies of movable and immovable cultural heritage. The main objectives are the following: the development of scientific research in the field of conservation-restoration studies of movable and immovable cultural heritage, specialized design and implementation of projects; promotion of scientific results; publication of scientific studies and articles in the form of journals and books; continuous improvement through exchanges of experience at European and international level, with other similar centers existing at national and international level; consulting activities and expertise on cultural heritage issues; initiation, development and promotion of projects in the field of conservation-restoration of cultural heritage; organization of conferences, continuous training and improvement opportunities, seminars, symposia, annual and biennial at national and international level.
Sânziana Gheorghe
PhD Candidate Faculty of Arts and Design, West University of Timișoara
Sânziana Gheorghe (b. 1997) is a visual artist and PhD candidate in Timișoara, at the Faculty of Arts and Design, West University of Timișoara. She has been a provisional member of UAP Romania since 2023. Through her projects, she studies the interaction between the sphere of visual arts and video games, exploring how fundamental principles from both fields can be incorporated into interactive artistic projects.
Andreea-Delia Buzilă
PhD Candidate & Artist Faculty of Arts and Design, West University of Timișoara
Andreea-Delia Buzilă is a PhD Candidate at the Faculty of Art and Design from West University in Timișoara. She has a master’s degree in Painting, at the Faculty of Visual Arts and Design in Iași. She furthered her studies through an internship in Belgium at PXL MAD School of Arts, where she explored the possibilities of trans-mediality in the painting and glass mediums and now she focuses her research on painting as a hybrid medium.
Mădălin Mărienuț
Lecturer PhD Faculty of Arts and Design, West University of Timișoara
Mădălin Mărienuț is a photographer and the initiator of the Imagine Cultural-Educational Project. Sound. 89′, the purpose of which is to keep the memory of the Revolution alive among young people through visual arts. Involved in the local community through curatorial projects such as the Interfoto Photography Biennale, the exhibitions Places Near Us and IMAGO, Visions in Transition or Peru, The Eternal Present, in collaboration with the Peruvian Embassy in Romania, Mădălin has a portfolio with collective, international participations in exhibitions in Istanbul, Turkey, Pirmasens, Germany, Birmingham Museum, UK and last but not least Athens, Greece as well as national exhibitions in Timisoara, Arad and Bucharest. In terms of personal exhibitions, we recall Indigenous at the Romanian Peasant Museum 2013, Surveillance Society 2017, Athens 2018 and Like I was a spectator 2019 hosted by the Void Gallery in Athens, The Morphology of Power in 2019, and last but not least, Wounded Light 2021, at ICR Vienna. He is a member of juries at photography competitions such as Places Near Us, Heritage from Near, European Identity, and Citizenship, or Timișoara Incognito – Free From Stereotypes, organized by the Timișoara 2023 Association – European Capital of Culture. Currently, Mădălin is a professor at the Faculty of Arts and Design in Timișoara – UVT, where he teaches photography.
Maria Sârbu
Art Historian & University Lecturer Faculty of Arts and Design, West University of Timișoara
Maria Sârbu is an art historian and curator. She works as a university lecturer at the Faculty of Arts and Design in Timișoara. She has been concerned with contemporary art since her doctoral studies when she researched Romanian art from the post-communist period. She has published the books Pseudo-signification and Hyper-signification in Romanian Art Since 1990 (2014) and Art Guide. An Introduction to Contemporary Romanian Art (2017). Her publications also include several other studies and articles in art journals and collective volumes. As a curator, she conducted a series of projects in collaboration with the Avantpost group, and in 2018, she founded the curatorial program DRAFT. Between 2019 and 2021, she was an assistant in the project “Gender Politics and the Art of European Socialist States,” initiated by the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań. In addition to academic and curatorial activities, she is interested in developing friendly methods for familiarising the public with notions and trends in art history.
Corina Nani
Associate Lecturer PhD Faculty of Arts and Design, West University of Timișoara
Corina Nani is a visual artist and PhD Lecturer at the Department of Design and Applied Arts of the Faculty of Arts and Design Timisoara, with numerous participations in international and national exhibitions. Since 2011, Corina Nani has also been coordinating the International Street Art Festival of Timișoara (FISART), one of the most representative street art festivals in Romania. Last but not least, Corina Nani is also an urban artist, with numerous murals in her portfolio.
Mihai Toth
PhD Candidate Faculty of Arts and Design, West University of Timișoara
Mihai Toth (b. 1990) lives and works in Timișoara. His artistic practice is based on a multimedia approach, generally shaped through interventions like site-specific installations, performative constructions, and performance. A constant aspect of how his projects are organized, constructed, and realized is the relationship between materiality and immateriality, specifically exploring the possibilities of interaction and dialogue between these two situations. At the same time, he has an affinity for investigating various conceptual algorithmic mechanisms, which he composes in diverse visual frameworks starting from a performative position. Often, his work explores the subject of space, ranging from personal-individual space to collective space, from private space to public space, from natural space to cosmic space, and the interconnected aspects between them. Additionally, his activity concerns collective referential systems where cooperation and group coordination take precedence over individual mechanisms. In this regard, he is part of the Baraka Artist Cultural Association collective and is a co-founding member of the Baraka Artist-run Space in Timișoara.
Justyna Orlowska
Interdisciplinary Artist & Senior Creative Designer
Justyna Orlowska is a visual artist who graduated from Intermedia Studies at the Faculty of Sculpture and the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdansk. In 2014, she completed her master’s degree with the performance piece, “Haircut”. This was the starting point for her artistic path of creating works combining man-nature- technology. In her projects, she shows emotions and relationships with “other” beings, often overlooked in everyday life, but so important for coexistence. She co-created the “Turn into Culture” collective, where she publishes photo reports from exhibitions and conducts creative workshops. She is a also culture and film journalist at Istoria.tv portal, cooperates as an educator with the Children’s University Foundation and in the Solve for Tomorrow By Samsung mentoring program.
Veronica Toma
Associate Lecturer PhD Faculty of Arts and Design, West University of Timișoara