Forest Creatures (2022)
A multimedia project, an illustrated poetry book about forests and the pandemic.
Forest creatures is a multidisciplinary art project aiming to illustrate, through various artistic mediums such as drawing, poetry, performance and video, a cathartic process of healing from the collective trauma of the global pandemic. By rethinking their relationship with nature, the (post-)human female characters depicted in the poems reorder their priorities.
Suddenly finding themselves in isolation, in a situation of uncertainty, of overwhelming fears, they seek peace in the middle of the forest, they reconsider what is really important, beyond the struggle for survival in the big cities, marked by individualism, hierarchical structures, microaggressions and daily humiliations. The anguish caused by the parents’ illness and the feeling of powerlessness felt thousands of miles away from them is present in the poetic texts as a symptom of migration, uprooting and alienation. As in a contemporary utopian fairy tale, these hybrid, fluid beings, who merge with different other species according to their emotions and the power relations that arise between them and other characters, become women-felines, shadows or plants, deciding to stop climbing the social ladder, to disappear discreetly into the darkness of the forest and find happiness in simple things.
Although at first it appears as a constraint (in a lockdown we are not exactly where we want to be), nature has a healing and liberating role, not only from the anguish caused by the virus, but also from the anxiety provoked by the hostile and competitive environment of the Western labour market.
I am Romanian and have been living in France for the past six years. During the first lockdown in France, I spent two months in Linas, a small village in Essonne, in the south of Paris, with my partner, at a friend's house. All three of us are Romanian and have been living in France for a few years. It was an extremely difficult time, not because we had to get used to working from home and in isolation, but mainly because we were far away from our parents and worried for their lives, because we didn't have enough information about the virus and we were told every day on the news that several thousands of people had died, we were encouraged to disinfect all the packaging when we came back from the supermarket, and our parents, old and vulnerable, seemed much less worried and informed than us.* It was difficult because we didn't know how long it would take, the vaccine was going to be available in two years, so we started to imagine what our lives would be like without being able to travel, to see our loved ones. I began to project myself into grim scenarios, anticipating mourning far from home.
*In 2021 they had Covid and luckily they both survived. If they didn’t, I couldn’t have been present at their funeral, because of travel restrictions.
Video-poem
One of the texts from the Forest Creatures poetry book was transformed into a video-poem, with the help of Mihai Florea, Alice Monica Marinescu and Cabiria Morgenstern.
For now, I will only upload the very short (trailer) version of it here:
Meet my collaborators.
Mihai Florea is a visual artist from Iasi, with a background largely developed on the photographic technique, especially analogue photography, having carried out, among others, projects documenting the communist industry which is today in an advanced stage of degradation. Later, he made the transition to the medium of video, revealing aerial and terrestrial perspectives of various motifs, places and situations that raise awareness about the state of the environment.
Cabiria Morgenstern is an emerging performance artist with a background in acting, dance and cultural management and entrepreneurship. Their interests range from social matters, such as gender identity, racism/discrimination and modern day feminism, to psychology and philosophy, subjects which they try to tackle through their art. You can see them in theatre plays in collaboration with the Jewish State Theatre of Bucharest or in various other fringe theatre productions and/or art installations.
Alice Monica Marinescu is an artist and has been working in independent theatre for over ten years.
She acts, writes, directs and works in political theatre and community art projects.
She has held playwriting and theatre workshops in various communities and co-organized several editions of the Political Theatre Season.
She supports politically engaged art and is confident in the power of theatre to effect social change.
She is a single mother, a feminist and believes in the motto "the personal is political".
Forest Creatures @ Borderline Art Space
The first Forest Creatures exhibition was organized in April - May 2023 by Borderline Art Space through the AltIași Cultural Association and was part of the "Post-Human Escapes" project, co-financed by AFCN.
Make a donation.
Forest Creatures will be a traveling exhibition in Iasi, Bucharest and Amsterdam. Besides my illustrated poetry book, it involves two videos, a performance with two actors in the gallery and a series of drawings and sculptures.
Most of this kind of artwork requires substantial funding to produce, with little or no remuneration. To wait for a grant, or an exhibit honorarium, often means the piece may never be completed or experienced by the public. A museum or gallery can sometimes pay for materials, transportation and the like but it is difficult to sustain an art practice of grand and exciting ideas without outside funding. Art patronage is critical to our society which is why museums must continuously raise funds. Artists have to do the same, usually by selling their work. Art and artists cannot survive without the support of the community at large. In order to realize my dream of being able to work unencumbered, it is necessary to fund my ideas. I would like to offer you an opportunity to become my Patron, to experience the artistic intimacy usually only shared with other artists, mentors, collaborators or curators.
To express my gratitude, I will keep you posted on any updates on the project, I will list your name on the exhibition materials and, if you donate 25€ or more, I will send you a signed giclée art print of one of my latest works.
