Puzzled - report from an international workshop on restoration in Curtişoara, Romania
Puzzled - report from an international workshop on restoration in Curtisoara, Romania
During the weekend of 8-10 of August 2008 I was invited to a workshop on restoring a kula in Curtisoara, a project within the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue. This workshop was initiated by domnul arhitect Stefan Bortnowski and was lead by domnul arhitect Stefan Manciulescu. Partners to the event, doamna Mioara Lujanschi and doamna Raluca Pop of eurocult.ro, from the PUZZLE national project’s coordination team. What follows is a short report on what I sensed during this very nice weekend, in a quite subjective form.
I am Johan Allgoth, a 28 year old swede in love with Romania. I am right now couchsurfing in ms Raluca Pop's apartment at the edge of civilization in Bucuresti, Romania. Before arriving Romania I've been working with the art project S23M for Manifesta7. S23M was a social experiment trying to adapt the net community around The Swedish Bureau for Piracy and thepiratebay.org to an analog setting (one of many disputed descriptions). Besides a pirate I am also a teacher, soon to be journalist and a digital voyeur.
Ms Pop was kind enough to invite me to join her to Curtisoara, free to spend this countryside weekend however I wanted. My layman interest in architecture rather revolves around structures of control than restoration, so when arriving I was not very prepared for what was about to take place. Since I was mostly looking for a place to work with my own projects in peace I did not care to research what this workshop was about.
But as it turned out I stumbled into a hugely interesting situation and had to put my other priorities aside. I saw social structures, I heard wise words from young and old people, I thought I heard not so wise words from some. I misunderstood a lot. I enjoyed every second. On the second day Raluca showed me some descriptions of the project, I read them as instructions and started working, ie documenting, thinking, hacking, interacting.
First of all, I don't speak Romanian and I know that there were at least one more French participant who neither spoke Romanian. Most other participants did, to varying extent. In a situation where you don't understand language and nuances you are bound to do and say things incorrectly and at points misbehave. Adjusting to several different language's expectations on how to behave, with the added confusion of entering a group that has already been working intimately together for a week, makes for a great challenge. And, if you like me is interested in both social/economical structures and language possibilities it also makes for a very good lesson.One of my first encounters at the museum was with Dan, a wise Romanian describing himself as a jack of all trades. I came with a car wearing plates of Bucuresti, at the countryside of Romania this can be enough criteria to dismiss you. Accidentally I let loose the very Bucurestean sounding alarm of our car, quite late in the evening. Dan angrily told me it was not appropriate with an alarm there. I excused myself only to get the reply: - Don't be sorry, buy me a drink.
The next morning both me and Dan were up with the sun, he started replying to me with more respect and during the rest of the weekend we had several very nice conversations on life. Dan told me about how all rivers are drinkable, his firm views on dogs, the paranoia of Occidental Europe and many other tracks suitable for longer texts each one of them.
The students and the architects seemed to be working very well together. The houses at the museum did impress me. Mr Bortnowski kindly offered me to sleep in a small farmers house, lower floor for cattle and upper floor for humans like me. Due to the heat I stayed both my lovely nights on the balcony. Even though I left the windows and doors to the room open, the inside had not a hint of morning due. Very good construction indeed. The kula and my quarters:
My next awkward situation came with choosing company. The first evening I was thirsty after a five hour hot car ride and when the workers offered me a beer I of course sat down with them. We shared beers and cigarettes. I am still unsure of whether it was appropriate, since I saw no one else socialize with them. That would be an unwritten rule I gladly break though.
During the weekend I made a lot of observations, most of them based in my culturally very Swedish discourse. I made judgments, I said things in my recordings that I would later have to adjust. For example I assumed that the men who actually built and restored the houses were low paid workers. At the early morning of Sunday I was honored a very fruitful talk on economy with mr Bortnowksi, in which he explained how most people in this region owned their own house, some soil to plough, some cattle and possibly a little house in the nearby mountains. My host concluded that we were in the middle of one of Europe's richest regions. Speaking with Georges Bataille on l'économie générale is maybe the key to understand this notion, I don't know but will for sure start an inter cultural dialogue with monsieur Bataille after this summers many encounters with magical economies.
Let me quote my dear friend Rasmus Fleischer, closer friend of Bataille:
“Bataille, in his study of the general economy, distinguished between two methods of thought and action: the servile one “of fear and the anxious search for a solution” against the sovereign method “of freedom of mind, which issues from the global resources of life, a freedom for which, instantly, everything is rich“ “
Well, the so assumed low paid workers might be much more well of than I thought. They might be spending the accursed share of their economy on excess rather than war. Still, after the closing of the coal mines the unemployment rates in the region are among Romanians highest. The Jiu is continuously flowing though and the power of a good river is indisputable.
A side note on the economy of Târgu Jiu . While visiting the city to study the works of Constantin Brancusi I wanted to buy some catalog on his other works. Sadly, I found that there was no printed information whatsoever to get hold of in the entire town, in fact it seems it is not even ok to publish pictures of the works. This is due to restrictions imposed by the copyright holder of Brancusi's works, namely a Theodor Nicol, nephew of the artist Natalia Dumitrescu, who was awarded the rights to Brancusi's work after the Romanian state wouldn't accept to receive them. I'd like to humbly suggest entrepreneurs of Târgu Jiu to disregard that nonsens and start marketing this great son of the region, with all means available. Brancusi's work are divine and I believe they could attract visitors from all over the world.
To conclude I believe my prime lesson from this weekend should be, be careful with your judgments when in unknown territory, be it unknown language, unknown economical structures or just meeting new people. Adapt, listen and show respect and you might just hear some archaically wise words on construction of houses or the life of dogs. Thank you, all participants, for having me.
Johan Allgoth
ioan at invaektiv dot com // invaektiv.com
Previously published here PDF . Sadly very poorly edited. The PR firm who handles the communication has a € 56 million budget from the European Commision, but they cant edit a PDF properly... When I ask for a contact to send a properly edited PDF to, I realize its something like six steps between content producers and the guy who handles the FTP-client. In case you were wondering where EU puts their money.
posted by drrignell @ 12:15 PM
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