Reading Evald Ilyenkov
Friday, 22th of November 2024
tranzit. ro/Cluj,
Napoca str, no 16, 1st floor, Cluj Napoca
Evald Ilyenkov (1924-1979) is the most important Soviet Marxist philosopher of the postwar. He has written on a large gamut of subjects, from problems of theoretical philosophy, theory of knowledge, the concepts of the “abstract” and the “concrete”, the “ideal”, and the universal, to Marx’s materialist dialectical method in Capital, problems of cybernetics, automation, machine-thinking, to problems of pedagogy, theory of education, psychology, human mind, and ethics and aesthetics. Ilyenkov can be considered the philosophical originator of what is known as “activity theory” in the Soviet Union, which in its turn precedes what is known as Cultural-Historical Activity Theory internationally nowadays. The concepts, ideas and theories of Ilyenkov have influenced generations of younger philosophers from the 1950s to present in Eastern Europe, while recently enjoying an increased attention in the anglophone world.
The aim of these monthly reading seminars is to closely familiarize the participants with the key concepts and theories developed by Ilyenkov with the hope of utilizing them in the face of contemporary polycrisis.
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Upcoming: The fifth edition of Ecologies of Emancipation – Imminent horizon: fascism or imperialism?
Organizational work of the fifth edition of the Ecologies of Emancipation summer school has begun. The school will take place at the hypha_etc campsite in Câmpu Cetății, between 10-16 August 2025.
The latest political and geopolitical developments, local and global, seem to confront us with a threatening double horizon: an accelerated slide towards fascism, or an equally precipitous retreat into imperialism - with all the overlaps, complicities and continuities between them. On the one side, then, a European democratic establishment that can only articulate its immediate future by renouncing the last remnants of a distributist state and democratic appearances, in a general arms race that promises nothing but authoritarianism and austerity at home, and devastating inter-imperialist conflicts on a global scale. On the other side, a populist insurgent bloc with deep roots and complicity in the very systems and apparatuses of Euro-Atlantic democracies, which is no longer shy in displaying its assumed fascism, and which promises, just as grimly, a harsh regime of austerity and authoritarianism at home, coupled with an equally provocative and bellicose attitude abroad, only in the name of a different set of values.
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In Between Ourselves: Perspectives on art, political imaginaries and realpolitik
Six -day intensive, July 22-27. 2025 in Iași and Chișinău /
This six-day intensive, July 22–27, 2025 in Iași and Chișinău brings artists, curators and theorists together to exchange practices and perspectives on art, political imaginaries and realpolitik. It includes screenings, presentations, site and studio visits, performance work, an evening of Radio Listening, a red thread of daily group reflection and a series of informal social gatherings. Participation is free, however, in person places are limited, book here by June 22. We provide the bus transport from Iași to Chișinău and return for the first 25 bookings. All other costs are borne by the participants. There is also the possibility of attending part of the programme online, book here for online access.
Contributor include: Luminița Apostu Toma (Iași), Valeria Barbas (Chișinău ), Florin Bobu & Livia Pancu (tranzit.ro/ Iași, 1+1), Nora Dorogan & Nicoleta Esinencu (Teatru-Spalatorie, Chișinău ), Lilia Dragneva (Ksa:k, Chișinău), Chris Dreier & Gary Farrelly (Office for Joint Administrative Intelligence, Brussels, Berlin), Tatiana Fiodorova (Chișinău), Cătălin Gheorghe (G. Enescu Art University Iași), Minna Henriksson (Helsinki), Kristina Jacot (Chișinău), Cezar Lăzărescu (Iași), Diana Mărgărit & Adrian Cioflâncă (Iași / Bucharest), Maxim Polyakov (3rd space / Kolhoz/ Drujba, Chișinău), Ghenadie Popescu (Chișinău), Andrei Pripasu (ZO Kraft, Iași), Vitalie Sprînceană (Platzforma.md, Chișinău), Oana Toderică (Iași), Vladimir Us (Oberliht Association, Chișinău), Mick Wilson (HDK-Valand/CAPIm, Göteborg)
Questions of the political have been engaged within artistic practice and wider art systems with increasing intensity in recent decades. At the same time we seem to be witnessing radical upheaval in the actualities of everyday political cultures, locally, nationally, and internationally. We are faced with a challenge to consider, that given the rapidity of wider transformations, are these forms of engagement – these strategies, ways of proceeding, operating principles across art and the political – adequate to these changed conditions? And where do we approach these questions from?
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To Give a House the Form of an Event
Launch of the eco-prototypes built in the frame of the project
Architecture, Biodiversity, Culture
Saturday, 14th of June, 2025, 12-8 pm
The Experimental Station for Research on Art and Life
Intr. Primaverii no. 10, Silistea Snagovului
Eco-prototypes
Cosmos Garden: Georgiana Strat
The Eastern Glasshouse: Ștefan Gorie, Vlad Nicolae
The Oven Demeter: V. Leac
The Summer Kitchen Acaret 44°N 26°E: Atelier AdHoc Arhitectură
The phyto-epuration system: atelier d’architecture autogérée
Garden furniture
Relaxation bench: Adrian Filip, Edi Constantin, Oana Radu
Community table: Andrei Ștefan Păsărică, Larisa Danciu, Medeea Sandu, Miruna Roșu, Timea Cristea
Hosts
Adelina Luft
Edi Constantin
Raluca Voinea
Contributions
Adelina Ivan & Mihai Mitran, Alexandra Pirici & Andrei Dinu, Alina Ușurelu, Ana Kun, Anamaria Pravicencu, Anca Benera & Arnold Estefan, Anna Smolak, Athena Dumitriu, Cătălina Frâncu & Teodor Călinoiu, Charles Esche, Dan Vezentan, Dimitrie Grigorescu, Elena Vlădăreanu, Iuliana Dumitru, Konrad Petrovszky, Liliana Basarab, Livia Pancu, Maria Mora, Mihaela Moldovan, Octavia Anghel, Olivia Mihălțianu & Stoyan Dechev, Ovidiu Țichindeleanu, Raluca Popa, V. Leac, Vlad Basalici, Yasmeen Al-Qaisi, Yujin Lee
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A World in Common(s)
From Marxist Feminism to Solidarity Economy /
18–24 August 2025,
Vármező/Câmpu Cetății (Romania)
Deadline for applications: 30 June
The purpose of this summer school is, first, to introduce theoretical frameworks such as Marxist feminism, world-systems analysis, and global labour studies to show how social reproduction is subordinated to endless capital accumulation in the capitalist world system. Second, it aims to explore what alternatives exist to this, i.e., how it is possible to engage in economic activities directly aimed at satisfying human needs.
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Results of the call for Curators and Artists at Salzburg International Summer Academy of Fine Arts 2025
Intensive workshops of between two and three weeks, dealing with topical questions of art production and directed by outstanding artists from all over the world – this is what awaits you at the Salzburg International Summer Academy of Fine Arts.
Founded in 1953 by Oskar Kokoschka as the "School of Seeing", in Hohensalzburg Fortress, it is the oldest of its kind in Europe.
Every year, some 300 participants from more than 50 countries attend some 20 courses offered in two fixed locations: Hohensalzburg Fortress and the Untersberg quarry in Fürstenbrunn, as well as in further temporary spaces in the town of Salzburg.
Well-known artists, curators and critics from all over the world offer courses focusing on topical questions of art production, as well as curatorial practice and writing about art.
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Recipes for Ripe Societies
Marina Sulima’s residency, part of the program Cultivators of Life
11.05 – 25.05.2025
Following a previous collaboration for the project Images of the Good Life in the East, a group exhibition organized in Chisinau last year, we have invited Marina Sulima to join us in a two-week residency in Bucharest and at the Station. The residency marks the beginning of the program Cultivators of Life taking place between 2025-2026 with a series of residencies, lectures, workshops and a group exhibition.
During her residency, Marina continued her artistic research Recipes for Ripe Societies. In this project, she aims to draw attention to the relationship between resource extraction and soil degradation through writing of alternative recipes. She took several things with her on her journey: pickled tomatoes, a handful of copper sulfate, crystals, and a bunch of grapevines. Around the village near the Station, she searched for houses made of clay, painted with lime and copper sulfate. She sketched different support structures found in the village for climbing vines to provide shade to the houses, both from wood and clay, or cement and tiles.
“High-tech tomato greenhouses rely on precarious migrant labor, tons of minerals spread out in the form of LED greenhouse lights, sprinklers, sensors and fertilizers. The entire edifice of intensive viticulture would collapse without fungicides, of which copper sulfate is the proudest. What kind of recipes for ripening fruit and our minds will be needed when the earth’s resource belly empties and the LED lights go out?”
We first screened the film Marina recently directed, Consider a Tomato, at The National Peasant Museum in a pre-premiere on the 22nd of May. The film follows the story of tomatoes, from closed-off Dutch greenhouses to Moldova, home to the filmmaker, to the many greenhouse workers who leave their own tomato patches to work behind glass walls. Narrated by Marina herself, the film looks into her family’s story of migration using her mother’s recipe book as an instrument to draw connections between tomatoes-as-protagonist and the social and economic imbalances of tomato production, from the abandoned land parcels of Moldova to the industrial glasshouses in the Netherlands.
More about the movie here.
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Listening to the Earth Beyond Silence
10.5.2025 - 9.8.2025
Kunsthalle Seinäjoki, Art and Culture Centre Kalevan Navetta, Nyykoolinkatu 25, Seinäjoki, Finland
An exhibition curated by The Resurrection Committee: Adelina Luft, Ovidiu Tichindeleanu, Raluca Voinea
With contributions from:
The Experimental Station for Research on Art and Life & Adelina Ivan, Darya Tsymbalyuk, Eduard Constantin, Jaana Kokko, V. Leac, Vlad Basalici
Collectivo Suumil Móokt’aan & Valiana Aguilar
Weaving Realities & Aldo Esparza Ramos, Yuchen Li
PARI (Panen Apa Hari Ini) & Anang Saptoto
Ingenious trackers overcame the limits of what can be seen by putting their ears to the ground in order to listen to the movement of horses or of a herd of animals coming from a distance. The Earth, large and all-welcoming, holds the weight of all our movements, across seas and continents. Can we learn though to listen to each other? Do we still have time – and do we give ourselves the time to listen beyond silence?
Four different collectives that are re-learning to listen to the Earth beyond silence are bringing here signs from the lands of China, Indonesia, Netherlands, Romania, and Yucatan, among others.
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CULTIVATORS OF LIFE
Announcement of a new two-year program: CULTIVATORS OF LIFE, initiated by tranzit.ro/Bucharest Association in partnership with MODEM – Center for Modern Contemporary Art in Debrecen, co-financed by The Administration of the National Cultural Fund.
Cultivators of Life is a cultural program that continues and supports the activities started in 2021 at the Experimental Research Station for Research on Art and Life in Siliștea Snagovului, focused on conserving biodiversity, testing ecological prototypes, and rethinking the relationship between soils, materials and artistic production. The program proposes the study and formulation of a new lexicon and practices related to an emerging relationship between indigenous/ancestral knowledge, land cultivation and natural sciences. It will be carried out by organizing a series of artistic residencies at the Experimental Station and in the city of Debrecen in Hungary, public events in four gardens outside Bucharest, applied workshops, conferences with indigenous philosophers and local guests at the National Museum of the Romanian Peasant, and a final group exhibition at MODEM – Center for Modern and Contemporary Art in Debrecen scheduled to open in October 2026.
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Marxism in the Sciences: Toward an International Critical Knowledge Network
CALL FOR PARTICIPATION /
Marxism & Sciences Journal, in collaboration with tranzit.ro/cluj, organises its second symposium at the hypha_etc campsite in Câmpu Cetății (Romania) between 1–6 September, which attempts to foster a forum for discussing the chances for collectively building up an international network of projects in particular pertaining to Radical Science and Art activism, Socialist Heritage Studies and Critical Contemporary Research.
In today’s situation, when Marxist thought seems ‘undead’ and has retreated to the academic realm, all we offer, it seems, are attempts at dissemination of ideas and publication projects (book series, journals etc.). We want to discuss what can be done about it and how that ‘retreat’ is not fortuitous, since Marxist terminology seems indispensable especially in the realm of ‘knowledge production’ and ‘knowledge economy’. We would like to discuss the possibility of building up a platform of exchange, education and information that goes beyond a collection of papers, pamphlets, and books that describe the situation, but to actively connect local grassroots activism and global academic and artistic research. The split of the realms seems to be a major obstacle to us nowadays. This aim in mind we should start in the fields we already work in.
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Mimosa Pudica
Residency of artist Valentina Vetturi and a get-together on 26 April 2025 /
The Experimental Station for Research on Art and Life
Int. Primaverii no. 10, Silistea Snagovului village
After more than 10 years since her first collaboration with tranzit.ro/Bucharest, artist Valentina Vetturi returns, this time in relation to Mimosa Pudica, her performative research on how learning about their memory with plants can inform principles of digital ecologies.
“At the core of this research are two questions that have fueled my artistic practice for over a decade: how do we remember and forget individually and as a society? And what remains of us when we no longer remember anything or if we remember too much? The movement, the space created between the experiences of forgetting and remembering, shapes the essence, the core of our mutating, hybrid, multiple identities as individuals and collectives. Over the years, I have sought answers to these questions in the persistence of music in human memory. I have looked at web technologies and the depths of their permanent records, and I have observed the fragile memory of papier-mâché dissolving in water. With Mimosa Pudica, I turn to the plant world. Inverting the human-centric perspective, I activate listening, observation, interaction, and learning practices with plants, questioning how they remember and if they forget. This individual listening phase alternates with discursive practices and shared experiences among plants and scholars from diverse disciplines and machines.
During the residency at the Station, we’ll observe some of the plants of the Cosmos Garden and invite a few Mimosa Pudica in the conversation. An ongoing observation in collaboration with tranzit.ro will begin in these days and last until September and maybe more. Parallelly, similar ongoing observations are running physically and remotely in Bari, London, and Hagen.
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On language, history, care
Artist talk: Theo Prodromidis
Friday, 11th of April, 2025, 7 pm - 8.30 pm
@tranzitiasi,
Address: Str. Sf. Atanasie nr. 25, Iași
Theo Prodromidis will expand on his personal history of art practice through collaborative processes and working relationships as a starting point and take a self-reflective look through the challenges of aesthetic production of crisis (for and from Athens) but also through involvement in initiatives on solidarity education and social movements. Theo will invite us to follow threads of language, fragments of oral history and reflect upon places of care.
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