“The magic of books comes to life on the walls of the University. Make the first step with a simple look!”

Book Street project delivers an artistic intervention in an important central public space in Bucharest, the “Bouquinists” area next to the University of Bucharest. It has done so through two components: banners and stencils.

The banners were printed each year with different contents, on different themes, based on the suggestions offered by the public during the cultural animations implemented in public spaces previous to the printing, as a dialogue between inhabitans.

For the first edition (2007), the banners were printed with quotations belonging to Romanian and international cultural icons.

For the second edition of the project(2008), the printings were focused on the popular traditional sayings from all over the world.

The stencils depict portraits of important cultural figures from Romania and from all over the world. While working, people interacted, trying to recognize the characters behind the image and trying to learn the techniques, thus creating a performance in itself.

From the very first edition, the press noticed that the “bouchinists” area became a cultural sight for the inhabitants of Bucharest. People of all ages and social groups came daily to read, to send SMSs or take and send pictures of the quotes.

Book Street was also voted as favourite project by the majority of the public at the PROJECTS.B exhibition that took place at Carturesti bookshop at the beginning of 2007.
At the first edition, there were two activities that involved the passers-by in the area that was intended for intervention. They were asked to deliver a message, a simple thought, a quote to the others. The texts were then printed and banners with quotations chosen from those written by the passers-by were put up. Afterwards, the cases of the antiquarians were painted and the I love Bucharest artists made stencils of various cultural figures.

At the second edition, the people were invited to write proverbs and sayings that show what they want to communicate to the others and this time the activities happened at “la fantana” (“at the fountain”) over a period of three days. Messages were written, selected, printed and fixed on the columns of the University. People came back to read the new texts and to spread the word.

Book Street is one of our ILB projects that relies on the direct involvement of people. Using the quotes and stencils, the project also intends to make people aware that space changes us, but at the same time, that we change space as well, through a passive attitude or through direct and dynamic actions.