2015
Video Installation
Acted by Emese Apai, Nicoleta-Ileana Colopelnic, Ernő Csurkuly, Florina-Cristina Florian, Radu Gaciu, Gabriel Girigan, Elena-Theodora Guță, Mihaela-Ramona Laslo, Gabriel Tarța, Radu-Ioan Toderici, Malvinka Urák
Camera by Zoltán Varró
Curated by Attila Tordai-S.
[de]limitations stages one of the instruments through which the Romanian state wields influence over its citizens: the history textbook. Since 1990, school history textbooks have undergone continuous revision, reflecting ideological shifts and the country’s gradual reorientation toward Western Europe.
The project consists of three videos standing alongside each-other featuring excerpts from primary school history textbooks published over the past 25 years. These fragments generate different meanings depending on the viewer’s reading position. Shifting perspective on the history presented in these manuals reveals both the constructed nature and the artificiality of national identity. A video of Ari writing different sentences extracted from the history textbooks is further nuanced by the collaboration with one their oldest school friends. Alongside these videos, the project also includes another work created through the involvement of several elementary school pupils, thereby bringing the discourse on cultural reflection into the realm of immediate social realities.
Special thanks to Adrian Dohotaru, Gabriel Girigan, Alex Cistelecan, KJ, Iulia Șandor, Dora Visky, Janka Visky
tranzit.ro / Cluj (RO)