Collaboration with Ion Fisticanu
Curated by: Nataša Bodrožić/Loose Associations
CHIOSC Residency, Oberliht Association, Chisinau 2009
In 2009, I was invited to take part in a short-term residency program in Chisinau, Moldova. Coming to a foreign socio-political context (the last European communist country during a turnabout from communist to democratic rule), I did not want to impose an outside view. Instead, I tried to observe and understand the context, whose aesthetics and post-socialist landscape though immediately felt familiar to me as a citizen of former Yugoslavia. Getting to know the artwork of the young artist Ion Fisticanu, I immediately felt inspired by the creations he made on the rooftop of his building. Instead of bringing a „new“ project into the described environment, I proposed Ion a collaboration in which we would combine his practice with my own artistic ideas of how to develop a relationship with public space through play, imagination, improvisation and the participation of citizens. Ion agreed and during eight days and with a group of volunteer participants, in playful walks in different neighbourhoods of Chisinau, we observed the urban sceneries, detected interesting locations and constructed improvised constellations representing cities, by using the materials we would find on the spot. On the last day in an empty fountain next to the National Palace building in the city centre, the final “city” made of participants and random passers-by was created. On a metaphorical level, the whole project spoke about the city as a possibility and its citizens as creators of new urban realities.
tonka malekovic 