The artistic intervention in the Piata Victoriei 1 subwaystation has begun in June 2008 with a number of creative workshops delivered atthe three museums in the area.

Bucharest metroART

- rehabilitates the esthetic and cultural aspects of the Bucharest metro space;
- establishes a visual link between metro stations and overground historical, cultural and touristic sights;

- is a new art creation that can be added to the national and local heritage;
- pins down the metro on the cultural and touristic map of Bucharest;

Using artistic interventions, the project aims to change the perception of these spaces, from a merely traffic areas to a rich public space enabling complex cultural exchanges.

Around 100 children (between 6 and 14 years old), 20 Romanian and British artists and 3 museum representatives worked together, drew, painted, sculptured, embroidered, collated and experienced all sorts of other artistic techniques for a period of 3 weeks.
Pictures from the creation workshops blog

The audience votes at Carturesti


pictures

The artists presented 23 ideas of artistic interventions for the intended space (Piata Victoriei 1 subway station), concepts based also on the works developed together with the children. The concepts were presented in a public exhibition in the sub_Carturesti gallery in Bucharest in the October 21st-November 11th 2008 period, where a jury and the audience voted for the most preferred ones.

Over 500 visitors of the exhibition enthusiastically and responsibly voted their favourite projects.
The vote of the public had the same weight as that of the jury, made up of representatives of the museums, of Metrorex, of UniCredit Tiriac Bank and Time-Out.10 of the installations and decorative objects were selected in order to be implemented:



Selected projects:

Cahle (Tiles) : project proposed by the artist Virginia Toma

The project is a decorative and informative intervention with challenging contents aiming to expose the Romanian Peasant Museum collection and wishing to rediscover tradition through a representation in an urban architectural location.

The decorative intervention is to be placed on the corridor wall connecting the two platforms. It’s composed of images found on the traditional Romanian tiles, with inserted proverbs and bywords. The pieces containing word will be illuminated from the inside, the result will be a composition enlivened by touches of light.
What inspired this project was the decorative tile -" cahla", which was traditionally used for tile stoves. Due to its shape, cahla (a clay slate) was used in various and original artistic manifestations. Many of the motifs found on these tiles come from a traditional background: "cahla" is decorated with figures, vegetal, zoomorphic, architectural, religious motifs, figurative or imaginary, ancient symbols that create a whole spiritual universe. Usually, the elements are taken from the surrownding reality, transformed and adjusted to traditional art context that is dominated by vegetal patterns. The ornamental role of the design is intensified by the need to communicate through images, the need of a visual impact and that of highlighting other aspects of the everyday life.
Using this type of setting, the subway area will become a more familiar one.
Materials to be used for the installation are glass fibre, wax, polish, electric bulbs.

The city of whispers - proposed by artist Alice Maddicott (UK)

The proposal is based on the sight of empty advertising cases on the platform wall. What if these empty spaces were filled with an exciting world that would encourage people to come to the museums? Like a large scale strange mythological narrative cabinet of curiosities in a Perspex box loosely based on a small-scale version of an advertising case. In an actual advertising case, or an especially built case on a large scale to be attached to the station wall. I see this being attached near the bottom of the stairs on the platform, with smaller boxes situation up the stairway leading people to the museum exit.

An embroidered narrative diorama is placed at the back of the Perspex case. The bottom half depicts stories I have researched from Romanian peasant mythology embroidered onto fine linen, as well as photos of peasant life stitched into the scene. This is rising up below the top half, which depicts contemporary Bucharest, again embroidered. There is fictional text embroidered in both English and Romanian (creating an international dimension and being accessible to both locals and tourists) illustrating this idea of hidden history and stories and layers of history rising through others – how we carry our past culture into our future one and how it is still relevant – something I think the Romanian Peasant Museum itself shows beautifully. In front of this embroidered backdrop there are four shelves in the box, two on each side (echoing the strip light bulbs in the advertising cases), stretching about a third of the way in so there is a gap in the middle. On these shelves are hand blown miniature bottles and bell jars, which contain small notes (like a message in a bottle), miniature hand made objects and photos of peasants.
There are small labels dangling down from these shelves with short fictional sentences about the contents on them. This is how the work draws on cabinets of curiosities – the way in which a museum displays things, but also drawing on personal collections and how this personal history is as important as a grand monumental history – something which I think is particularly relevant to the Romanian Peasant Museum.

There can also be other smaller Perspex boxes, also to be attached to the wall. They would contain embroidered backgrounds with text and objects (basically smaller versions of the large box), the idea being that these boxes are things escaping from the cabinet, its story and Romanian history and leading the viewer along towards a new discovery. These smaller boxes would lead the viewer up the stairs to the museum – the place these things are arguably trying to escape to. They may be joined together by thread with miniature handmade books dangling from it (like a washing line!).

This work relates directly to the workshops I personally devised and ran in the Romanian Peasant Museum, which included the creation of a story with the children based on the contents of the museum, which led to the creation of individual handmade books and embroidered stories which were eventually made into a shirt. It is important for me to use traditional “folk” techniques like embroidery to link together these peasant traditions within an accessible, collaborative, contemporary art context.

Visiting Tradition - proposed by artist Ramon Sadic

The concept of the project brings up the facts: Bucharest is the creation of the descendants of Bucur. If you want to live temporarily among mansions and haycocks or, in daily speech, BETWEEN INTER AND TENT, you just have to enter the door of the traditional hosts: the Romanian Peasant Museum , the "Grigore Antipa" National Museum of Natural History, or the National Geology Museum. The path to these destinations is lined with vivid characters that indicate the way towards the museums and they also help you to better understand the exhibits. The Romanian peasant, the dinosaur an the meteorit are here, among us, without us even knowing it. They are part of us, part of our being, because they are part of our collective past. In this alert and quasi-impersonal present that we live in, we need to be reminded of our origins.

The intervention consists in creating a false image by installing a print-panel between two props in between the two tracks in Piata Victoriei 1 subway station (the IMGB-Pipera line). The panel will display characters from the archives of the Romanian Peasant Museum, from different regions of Romania: Muntenia, Banat, Dobrogea, Transilvania etc. and will incorporate them in a montage over the photograph of the empty platform.

Basically, it is a 2D simulation of the platform that the awaiting passenger sees from across, an illusion created by the characters holding the key role in front of the innocent viewer. Used to seeing people on the other platform waiting for the subway, the passenger will need a few seconds to link the image to reality. The figure of the characters in the montage will be similar to that of real passengers: they will be sitting, mothers will be holding their children's hands, only instead of modern elements they will have objects used in the rural areas, on the field, for gardening and they will bear different hues - black and white and sepia tone. There will also be a sign indicating: "towards Romanian Peasant Museum".

Although at first the project includes only one such panel, it would be a good idea to transform more panels in the same manner for a broader impact. The other panels could have different themes: "towards Antipa" or "towards Geology Museum" etc.

MetroCarpet - proposed by artist Alina Tudor

This artistic intervention is a replica mosaic of rustic carpets in an oversized version, that will indicate the direction towards the Romanian Peasant Museum nearby Piata Victoriei 1 subway station.

There are several locations where this intervention could be developed (according to suroundings and the other interventions): the two platforms, the exits for the museums, the upper part of the arched wall between the two platforms or the transit stairway wall.

The reproductions of rustic carpets will clearly suggest their origin and also easily point to the museum. The vast exhibitional space makes it necessary to use oversized prints. The natural layout (the carpets will seem to be thrown on the floor, hung to dry or lying on the stairs) will draw the attention of the passengers and act as a visual signal. These interventions have just an esthetic role, they are bidimensional compositions that do not interfere with the passengers or the train traffic routes.

The concept sprung from the Romanian Peasant Museum collection of carpets, which will be used as model for the reproductions. The Romanian Peasant Museum has one of the most spectacular layouts, but at the same time, one that is very difficult to represent at its true standard. This is why I chose to work with replicas, so that I leave out the risk of a superficial folklore motif.

The project is strictly a visual one and does not interfere with the architecture of the subway station. The ceramic mosaic technique is in the same register as the existing setting and it only adds colour and dynamism. In addition, the technique used for all the elements is very durable, taking into consideration the passenger traffic.

Selected projects:

For the "Grigore Antipa" National Museum of Natural History

Acvalight - proposed by artist George Ionescu
to be placed in Piata Univesitatii metro station

Unanimously voted as first option artistic intervention for the Piata Victoriei 1 metro station, due to its technical characteristics, the intervention finally constructed itself best for the Piata Universitatii subway station and marking another point of the city’s touristic trajectory towards the "Grigore Antipa" National Museum of Natural History.

The intervention focuses on creating lamps or neon devices with a design inspired by the sea life. The objects will be life size or as close as possible to the dimensions of the animals they reproduce.

The proposed object is a copy of a whale and has a clear function, since it is used as an alternative lamp. Another proposal for a decorative and functional object is a bench imitating a marine animal, that would fill the space in an unitary manner.

Acavriu(ACQUARIUM) - proposed by artist Irina Abaza

Zebrula - proposed by artist Mara Patriche

While waiting for the subway there are only a few who can find a free seat on the platform. The project comes with the proposal of bringing new furniture with a design close to the particularity of each museum, thus directly inviting the passengers to visit the three insitutions.

A series of 7 zebra-like banches are to be placed in the metro station, thus indicating the near presence of the Antipa Museum.

Selected projects:

For the Geology National Museum

PLANETARIA - proposed by artist Mihaela Ciustea

The concept for this project came with the "My planet" workshop for children that took place in July at the Geology National Museum.

We began with small planets made of paper, flour and paint. They are here transformed in artistic installation signaling the museum through a fragment of an imaginary universe filled with lively coloured planets, a window to a different, still very close world to the dark closed underground one.

Life before the subway - proposed by artist Vladimir Dincu

This artistic intervention proposes to use “fosiles” of prehistoric animals, insects or plants fixed on the walls of the Piata Victoriei 1 subway station in order to mark the exit to the Geology National Museum. The intention is to create the illusion that the fosiles were found during the building of the station and intentionally left there as a geologic legacy .

Hubble Bubble - proposed by artist Irina Broboana

The intervention uses a decorative plexiglas panel with glass jars containing animals, insects or plants, pointing at the way object are usually exhibited in museums. There is a double purpose attached to the case: firstly, it inserts contemporary art objects in the public space, and secondly, it makes it easier for the passenger to relate and to get used to this kind of information, so that the museum becomes a familiar and comfortable place. The project combines natural elements (plants, insects, shell fish) and artifical, stylized ones.

Metromuse - proposed by artist George Ionescu

a project imagined as reinventing of the three metro entrances/exists of the Piata Victoriei subway station, is also among the favourites of the jury and the public.
Bucharest metroART is an ongoing project, addressing the subway stations in Bucharest. It started with Gara de Nord 1 and continues now with Piata Victoriei 1 and Piata Universitatii.

Bucharest metroART:

Bucharest metroART is a pilot project and an invitation for other NGOs, public institutions or personal initiatives to propose and develop new artistic and cultural project ideas targeting the public space in Bucharest.