TRANS EUROPE HALLES
A network of grassroots cultural centres with members in 36 European countries.
Bitamine Faktoria is member since 2018.
PROJECTS IN WHICH I PARTICIPATE
ALINA ANDREI
YOU KNOW ALL THESE PEOPLE
I have taken photographs of people from Spain and France, more specifically from the Basque border between the two countries and also from a multi-ethnic city in Romania, passers-by and others I know. They spoke Basque, Spanish, French, Romanian, Hungarian, Russian, Italian, Portuguese, German, English and more languages that I can't remember now.
I mixed them up, so it's practically impossible to know where they come from. And yet, when you look at these paper people, they look familiar even if you have never met them, even if you have never seen their faces.
A gesture may remind you of a schoolmate, a purple coat of an aunt you can't stand, an older man of the silent neighbour walking his dog in front of your house, a young woman in jeans, you get a sense of deja vu of the good (or the bad) that you can't really explain. They are all different from each other and at the same time similar. Remember that the next time you are invited to hate other people (whoever they are).
I thought of the toys that hang in children's cots: toys to banish boredom and fear of loneliness/darkness. Obviously, it is a symbolic representation for adults, a false talisman that cannot protect you from any nightmare or unadorned real life. These installations also refer to the mobile installations of Alexander Calder and Bruno Munari.
Alina Andrei