LONDON.- Beaconsfield is now showing Past Present, a new exhibition from London-based Romanian artist Ioana Marinescu (b. Bucharest, 1973). Exploring the recuperation of cultural memory, the project works with the destruction of ancient Pompeii caused by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, alongside events in 1980s Bucharest, when a historic residential quarter of the city was razed to make way for Ceaușescu's Palace of the Parliament or ‘People’s Palace’.

Working with Bucharest-based choreographers Smaranda Găbudeanu and Iulia Mărăcine and using archival image, video, soundscape, testimony and live performance, Marinescu traces both events and finds parallels in the sudden displacement of both populations. Whilst the spaces left by the bodies in Pompeii were cast in plaster by archaeologists, the erasure of Uranus Hill in 1980s Bucharest leaves only witness statements.

The artists say “Past Present proposes a back and forth movement between forgetting and remembering, erasing and restoring. Past spaces, objects and stories are brought into the present. Their reconfiguration produces new experiences, which in turn become new archival sources. What remains when seemingly there is nothing left? What is the potential for generating new perspectives on a challenging historical past?”

Photographic traces of events separated in time and place, are architectonically exhibited in the galleries of Beaconsfield (also the historic site of a radical demolition when the former Ragged School was cut in half in the early 20th century due to the extension of the railway) to be animated by the choreographic, live research of Smaranda Găbudeanu and Iulia Mărăcine.

Marinescu, Găbudeanu and Mărăcine are joined by other collaborators – film maker Laurențiu Calciu, performers Andreea David, Hennie Lee and Eliza Trefaș, actress Katia Pascariu, choreographer Hanna Gillgren, dramaturg Phoebe von Held, architect Thomas Goodey, and sound artists Doru Apreotesei and David Crawforth – to collectively sculpt and install images that allow the audience, and participants to inhabit an imaginary space, connecting past with present, remembering with forgetting.

Ioana Marinescu is an architect and photographer who works with large images in public spaces, with projections and live actions. Her PhD by practice from the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London, focussed on the activation of archival imagery in urban contexts and through the body. Marinescu has delivered numerous lectures and workshops on her doctoral research as well as lecturing at Greenwich and Kingston Universities; with recent exhibitions at Space for Contemporary Art Bucharest, Kunsthalle Exnergasse Vienna, Helsinki Contemporary, Architectural Association London and Swiss Architecture Museum Basel.




Smaranda Găbudeanu is an interdisciplinary artist and founder of PETEC. Her work reflects her training at Bucharest’s National University for Theatre and Film as a puppeteer and at CNDB Academy of Dance and Performance: movement and the body/bodies stand at the core of all her projects. As an international dancer, performer and choreographer for theatre and film, Găbudeanu has participated in numerous productions staged at the National Centre for Dance and collaborated with a variety of public theatres, independent companies and contemporary art museums. An increasing interest in the visual arts has led her to an MA in the Theory and Practice of Image at CESI, University of Bucharest. https://petec.ro

Iulia Mărăcine is a performer and co-founder of Ludic Collective, collaborating with visual artists, choreographers, musicians, theatre creators and filmmakers. Within the collective, Mărăcine co-creates and organises participatory performances, audiovisual installations and somatic workshops in art galleries, theatres, and schools. Her work was shown at Battersea Arts Centre, London; 13Festivalen, Gothenburg; KyivDanceResidency, Kiev; Cloud@Danslab, Den Haag; Seoul Dance Centre; Re-Generators Festival, Iași, RO; Geumgang Nature Art Biennale, South Korea; ARTHUB, WASP, National Dance Centre, The Institute (Bucharest). She performed in venues including Opéra National de Paris, National Museum of Contemporary Art Bucharest, Cărturești Verona, Art Safari Bucharest and Centrul de Interest (Cluj, RO).

PAST PRESENT is a Beaconsfield commision co-produced with PETEC.

Beaconsfield

Since 1994 Beaconsfield has been a laboratory dedicated to the exploration and evolution of experimental art. It is an uncompromising space where open-minded artists and audiences come to challenge themselves and their understanding of what art can be, and supportive space for taking risks and exploring new ideas.

PETEC

Founded in 2013 in Bucharest, PETEC is an interdisciplinary platform for production, research and education in contemporary dance. The company’s productions are rooted in the exploration of unconventional themes and performative languages, constantly pushing the boundaries by testing new methods and forms of work.

Beaconsfield
PAST PRESENT
July 22nd, 2023 - August 12th, 2023
Sunday 24 September, 18.00-21.00. Past Present research lab: CNDB, 80-82 Bd Mărășești, Bucharest