This month, I’m beyond excited to be travelling to the Negreni Fair, held since 1815 on the banks of the Crișul Repede River. Also known as Fechetău by the local Hungarian population, it holds the title of the largest antique fair in Eastern Europe, attracting thousands of visitors every year who come to bargain and buy from Transylvanian peasants and Roma traders.

For centuries, this fair has remained true to its tradition of being organized every October, on the second weekend of the month, bringing together craftsmen and merchants from all over the country. This made me reflect on the place tradition still holds in today’s world of technology. Do we still have artisans? And if so, can they still make a living from their craft, or have they been forced to alter their traditions — or worse, abandon them altogether? How do people relate to their roots in an era dominated by consumerism?

With these questions in mind, I invited Oana Filip to tell us about the artisans she has met and interviewed during her career as a reporter, and how she sees their practice surviving in today’s society. Maria Zavate (also known as Zavatos) recommends some craftsmen and craftswomen we should know about and keep in mind, complementing Oana’s article.

Next up, I talk with two very different yet equally inspiring people: Andreea Tocitu, a woman who constantly reinvents herself, and Andrei Cozlac, a video artist who has worked with many of Romania’s most important theatre directors. Each of them offers us an insight into their mind and soul.

We wrap up this edition with a short piece by Oana Vasiliu about Dumitru Gorzo’s exhibition at MARe, which challenges us to rethink identity in the contemporary art landscape.

As the cold weather settles in and the country fills with wonderful events, I hope this October edition will keep you warm on quieter days and help you discover new places, new people, and maybe even new perspectives.

Laura x

The Beauty of craft & traditions in a world of technology

As a reporter, one of the first traditional artisans I met and interviewed was an elderly Romani man from Prahova who made wooden spoons. I had many questions about the process, about what it feels like to carry on a tradition passed down from father to son, but the story he told me was less about the nobility of tradition and more about the practicality of life: by continuing to make and sell wooden spoons, he could help support his family and send his grandchildren to school, even though he no longer had the physical strength to work like he did in his youth. On the same work trip, I met and spoke with a young coppersmith, who showed me how he makes cauldrons, while telling me how he envisions the future of his six-month-old daughter (it didn’t involve cauldron-making).

A few years later, I got to talk to women who decorate eggs and houses in Ciocănești, Bucovina, a village where egg-decorating has become a tourist brand. They too had learned the craft from mother to daughter, and they too saw it through a practical lens. It allowed them to send their children to university and supplement their income, but it came with long hours of work and with the need to modify and adapt their traditions to the needs of tourists and clients.

Other than their motivations, they had another thing in common: they were all rather used to talking with reporters about their work. By being some of the few who still keep tradition alive, in a world where this is increasingly more exotic, they are automatically exposed to media attention. But if we think about it for a minute, isn’t it strange to think of them as exotic, when their work used to be all that common, not even that long ago?

In the most basic way, the craft is understood as the creation of functional items made by hand, and it was an unbelievably important step in our evolution. Over time we didn’t just perfected the stuff we created, we also started embedding it with meaning. Artisanal work was part of the community as objects were made locally, by people you knew, and their creations were the result of knowledge that was passed down by generations. This changed with the Industrial Revolution. With its huge factories and huge need for working hands, the Industrial Revolution transformed society and changed forever the way we see craftsmanship and artisanal work. There was no need for me to buy a blouse made by a local artisan as there was a cheaper alternative. Perhaps the blouse was not as beautiful and it didn’t hold the same cultural significance, but it was cheaper, and the choices I would have would have been limited.

This is the reality we still operate today. Unless we count some global catastrophe, for better or worse, there is no returning to pre-Industrial time. Just as much as there is no returning to pre Globalized time, or pre Internet time. But just because there is no returning, it does not mean we can not question or challenge our present.

Are we as happy as we can be in our present day? Are the objects that we use the best they can be? Are the people creating it treated with the respect they deserve?

At least for the last question, the artisans I talked to would argue no. Another consequence of living in a post industrialised, globalized economy is that we no longer understand (and many of us could not afford) the value of handmade products. All the artisans told me they feel they undersell their products and they could not put a price tag that reflects the amount of time and work consumed because then no one would buy them.

Meeting artisans over the years, the happiest ones were the ones that chose craftsmanship with a sense of agency and security, because it fulfilled a personal need, not just out of economic necessity or family tradition. There is a world of difference between the young coppersmith at the beginning of my story and the young German carpenters I recently met in Sibiu, journeymen who voluntarily chose to travel the world with their craft like it was the custom in the Middle Ages. There is also a world of difference in how they are perceived by society. How can we move forward from this state where both the object and the artisan are not valued enough?

Lately I became interested in the works and writings of John Ruskin, an 19th century English writer and art critic who was an important influence to the Arts and Craft movement (an artistic movement that contrasted machinery and factory production with simpler, nature and locally inspired designs.) Ruskin wrote against the work done in factories, which alienated the worker, and produced dead objects that lacked beauty and soul. For him the ugliness of the buildings and of the objects were a reflection of the ugliness of a social system that forced people to work to their death in unsanitary conditions for the profit of a few, that condemned people not only to material poverty but to cultural poverty, as they had no means to express themselves. For him, a return to the craft was a solution to this situation. And it makes sense. “Craft emerges in times of crisis often as an alternative to the perceived failure of industrial production and consumption to deliver societal benefits that have been promised” says a scholar, cited in an article on craft imaginaries.

I think about this a lot as we live in a world where technological advances and consumption haven’t managed to make our lives better. Not in a full sense, anyway. And I doubt AI, the new revolutionary technology, will do any better. For Ruskin the solution to the problems of Industrialisation was a return to the craft. And I hope for us it can be the same.

When my feed is inundated with AI slop I try to imagine the products the artisans I met created:the simple wooden spoon, the sturdy cauldron, the meticulously decorated egg. The different things they mean – from a way to economic independence, to holders of culture and custom.

Crafts allow us to have imagination, it allows us to see a different sort of work and understanding of art and materiality, a more comunal one. It is not an idealised idea, but an alternative. An alternative that might prove useful in the turbulent times to come. But it is an alternative we have to actively choose. We can not all become craftsmen, but we can choose to support them. Buy from them when we can without hackling at the price, respect them and listen to their stories. It is not only them and their families that we are supporting, but an alternative to the ugliness and loneliness of today’s world.

Oana Filip is a reporter for Scena 9. She writes about nature, rural life, museums, pop culture and everything else that exists under the sun.

3 Craftspeople Reviving Tradition in Inspiring Ways

I put my hopes in craftsmanship with all my conviction. There are great ways to push crafts forward and give new meanings to them. They could become our refuge. Our cure for anxiety and alienation. There is a huge patrimony to restore and amazing traditions to revive and preserve without getting stuck in some romanticized version of our past.

What if the revival of craftsmanship could be an unconscious response to the weird times in which we question our very role and existence? A coping mechanism that generates a behaviour rooted in our creative qualities? You can’t stop progress and whatever good or bad it brings, but you can create new paths to live a meaningful life. Few things are more meaningful for humans than what we can create with our own mind and hands. And here are a few examples:

1. IONELA LUNGU (acclaimed clay artist from Humulești)

When I was visiting Tg Neamț Citade,l I saw a stand with original hilarious clay faces that looked like Mărioara and Ion from Creangă’s stories.They were sold by a red head lady, Ionela, dressed in traditional garments and with two braids in her hair, just like Mărioara. She is mostly known for her Creangă faces, but she is also an amazing tapestry artist. She decorated the school in Vânători-Neamț with her Creangă stories imagined in tapestry. When she’s not moulding clay, she teaches children about traditions in a way that honors the old craftsmanship and allows you to develop your own approach.

2. FLORIN ROTAR (carpenter)

The way old buildings speak to some of us is almost a mystical wonder for me. I have loved old buildings my whole life. They speak volumes about what is important to people in a given time and context, how people choose to coexist with the environment. You can tell what matters to people across time just by looking at what they built.

Restoring old buildings is a heavy pursuit, but it is one of the most satisfying. You create a new world rooted in an old one. This would be impossible without the very people that bring them back to life using their hands and skills. Such a specialist is Florin Rotar, who learned how to do woodwork from very early on and followed the footsteps of his grandfather, well-known in Râu Sadului (Sibiu) for making rooftops.

I discovered mister Rotar last month, when Cronicari Digitali posted on Youtube this small documentary about restoring countryside houses.. It is an entire series that I highly recommend. It might give you the itch and go find your grandparents house and save it.

3. CHEST OF BORLEȘTI (community of sewers)

I was born in a village that used to have history, but somehow 50 years of systemic oppression erased any sense of community and tradition. But in the last 35 years, here and there, those with a vision try to reconnect people with their roots. This is how Cufărul Borleștiului (Chest of Borlești) came into being. In 2013, a group of women aging from 20 to 50 started to research the original signs in our clothes. Curiosity turned into knowledge and knowledge into workshops that put together girls aged 10 with elderly women aged 70, with a needle in their hands, books, patterns and a clean canvas. Together they sew Romanian traditional blouses (ie, part of UNESCO heritage), decorated with the original signs from the region. A tradition reborn and a new patrimony is being built in our age.

They work with original luxury fabrics from Semne Cusute (Sewed Signs) an managed, with the help of one last Romanian factory of threads and textiles, to recreate the fabric Queen Mary used to wear. Real traditional thread was extinct for almost a century and they brought it back with research.They traveled abroad with them, exhibiting in Europe and last year they completed a 144 album that puts together all the research they made over years.

This is what initiatives like Chest of Borlești do. They preserve the very core of what is valuable, real and beautiful in our actual history.

Zavatos is a guest writer. She writes recommendations that make life easier to navigate in her own monthly newsletter Zarzavat. On instagram she is a visual storyteller that talks about heritage a lot.

Andrei Cozlac. From Theatre Stages to New Media District always open to experimentation

Andrei Cozlac is one of the most renowned video artists in Romania, having collaborated with many of today’s leading theatre directors. A two-time UNITER Award winner, he is also a university lecturer at the George Enescu National University of Arts in Iași, within the Faculty of Visual Arts, Photography and Video Department, and curator of the New Media District section at Romanian Creative Week.

As RCW comes to Bucharest for the first time this weekend (3 — 5 October), I sat down with him to talk about the festival’s programme and his broader views on art.

I find your video installations to be very realistic; they manage to fill a space so that they become an extension of it, while transporting you into the middle of the story. What matters most to you artistically when you embark on a project?

It’s important to me that the audience doesn’t see the technological means, that it is a video in itself, but rather perceive it as an organic presence that has always been there. In my theater projects, I always try to mediate the relationship between space and video, so that what I install on stage comes across in a natural way. That is, we don’t pause, watch a video, and then continue the act. I am also interested in the story. And even more so in the director’s vision. What is the world he wants to develop and how much do I resonate with his approach? In some shows, I easily become attached to ideas, concepts, attitudes. But I always seek to integrate video more in relation to the actor, the space, and the director’s vision.

Tell me a little bit about New Media District and how you ended up taking part of building this platform.

It all started with Irina Schrotter’s invitation to create an installation for the first edition of Romanian Creative Week. I was already quite active in theater and the arts but I had many fellow artists who did not have the same exposure, so I suggested to Irina that, instead of me creating an installation, we work with students and other artists on the market. We would create a collective exhibition, which was initially called New Media Alley. I really wanted it to happen in a public space so that people would stumble upon it. I started from an incident that happened a few years ago. A work by an artist, I don’t remember exactly who, had been brought to Iași. He worked with all kinds of recyclable materials and made a very cool installation in the middle of the city. People couldn’t understand the meaning of that object and complained about the amount the artist was paid. And I realized that maybe it wasn’t the happiest case of mediating the artistic object, in the sense that I don’t think a bridge of communication was created between citizens and the event. I really wanted this New Media District to become a platform where New Media artists, who are creating in the shadows, are claimed and returned to the community. And that their works, being taken out of the gallery, would lose that elitist image.

New Media Alley later became New Media District, which operates on several layers. It tries to activate as much of the local artist resource as possible. There are areas for

established artists, emerging artists, and areas for student scholarships and experiments. And the areas are not delimited. They all work together in that space, which is ultimately a form of networking, of getting to know each other’s practices.

This year, Romanian Creative Week is coming to Bucharest for the first time. What will the New Media District exhibition look like?

The exhibition in Bucharest features a series of nine installations that we are setting up in the courtyard of the National Museum of Romanian Art. Mainly due to the weather and the fact that they are displayed outdoors, I was interested in choosing works that can also be seen from the street, and I concluded that video mapping installations and light installations based on LED strips would work best.

I made a very small selection from a portfolio of 40 or 50 works exhibited at the NMD over the last two years. Teodor Buruiană, a student from Cluj, is bringing to Bucharest two works he har created — Closer to You, a very cool wrought iron sofa, which is actually composed of lights, and Waters of Imagination, where he also creates a luminous LED sculpture that invites the public to approach the entire context in a more playful spirit. Another cool installation we will bring is Georgea Dura’s Feeling, which represents two entangled characters. They have a kind of inner light, and when a person touches one of the characters, the chest of one lights up and the other goes out – as if they are bypassing each other, exchanging affection.

Do you think that today’s audiences are looking more for art and experiences that appeal to their emotions rather than their intellect?

I believe that, observing the dynamics of the last 10 years and being a university professor who’s aware of the problems and concerns of the younger generations, things seem to be moving towards a deeper understanding of emotions, largely due to the social anxiety that has accelerated over the last 20 years. Communication sometimes seems like a strange thing or – how should I put it – something we no longer know how to manage. We now know how to manage relationships very well through our phone screens. Over the past 10 years, I have talked to many artists who complain about this situation — that less people are interested in conceptual art or contemporary art anymore. Scientific discourse is no longer valued. Instead, there is a fierce need to find projects that respond to emotional needs.

You have worked with the greatest theater directors, as well as with the most talented Romanian set designers and artists. Could you pinpoint to what they all have in common, in their pursuits and practice? Something that you share with them.

One thing I have noticed that most of them have in common is a very rich inner universe. An inner effervescence that defines them and through which they cannot simply tick off a creation. A kind of trance sets in during the work process, the person lives and breathes that creation. Sometimes it can be a positive factor, other times a harmful one, but it is something I resonate with. This desire to search, which is deduced through a freedom of play.

Romanian Creative Week comes to Bucharest this weekend, 3 – 5 of October. And later this month, you can admire Andrei’s work at FNT – The National Festival of Theatre for which tickets are already on sale.

Andreea Tocitu is dancing her way into a career in interior design

Those who already know Andreea Tocitu have most likely met her on the dance floor. That’s because for years she has been teaching dance and femininity classes, by candlelight and with prosecco in our glasses, which many of us have attended at least once. But dancing was never her final destination. I invited Andreea for an interview because she goes through life with great courage, constantly reinventing herself. After years of branding and marketing for jewelry brands and an attempt to start her own creative studio, Andreea took up interior design with zero formal training but with a highly developed aesthetic sense, managing to attract the admiration of those around her for the projects she has completed over the past year.

You’ve had a very interesting journey. When I first met you, you were working in a jewelry store, then we met again at your dance classes, and today you have just completed your first interior design projects. Were all these pursuits conscious choices, or did each one come about naturally?

I think I have been extremely lucky that, in my 10 years of work experience, all the projects I have been involved in have been connected in a very natural way. I have developed an overview from all points of view. I know what the communication, marketing, social media, events, sales, and project management departments need to do.

And what role has curiosity played in each stage of your life?

Curiosity, courage, and enthusiasm are the things that guide me in life; they are like an engine. If one of them is missing, something doesn’t make sense, and I know it’s not for me. But I think my aesthetic sense, all my ethics, work, and principles come from performance dancing. All my life, I had to be perfect for the dance to happen at the level I wanted it to happen. When I was a child, school was school, and everything had to be impeccable. And after school, there were three hours of training. And after training, there was homework, and so on. I think that, unconsciously, I created an extremely well-organized structure for myself, which I still follow today. Although I have been performing dance almost my entire life, it was never the destination, but rather the way I went through life itself. I always knew that I had this passion that, no matter what, would always be there for me.

Just recently, I had my 10-year high school reunion, and my class teacher brought the letters we wrote 10 years ago for our future selves . The letter I wrote to myself so beautifully ended by saying that I hoped I will go through life dancing.

What motivated you to take the step towards interior design?

Ten years ago, when I had to apply for college, my first choice was interior design, but I gave it up for communications and marketing which I thought would offer me more options. But I told myself that if I was destined to do interior design in this life, it will find me. And 10 years later, when the proposal came, I couldn’t help but say yes. It came from a collaborator with whom I had worked on a previous project and who knew me very well. He knew my aesthetic sense, my ethics, my principles, and he strongly believed that I should take care of the design of his apartment. It was a project in which I ticked all of my three boxes. First, curiosity, because it was a new field for me, then courage, throwing myself into something I had never done before and didn’t know exactly how to do, but with the enthusiasm that I would figure it out.

You have completely changed direction, and that takes a lot of courage. How do you view your transformation—is it a challenge, an adventure, or rather a natural step in your evolution?

I realized very clearly that reinvention is part of who I am. My dad was actually laughing at me a few months ago, saying, do you think we’ll make it through the year with your new job?

And, honestly, I look around more and more and I think that’s what life should be about. About this transformation, or reinvention, so that you don’t wake up one day feeling depressed or sad or anxious and feel like you want to change everything, but you don’t know where to start. It seems to me that the sooner you discover yourself and the more you experiment, the better. For me, it’s a process that has taught me to enjoy the present to the fullest and to remain open to the future and new opportunities.

I find it incredible that you have taken on design projects that involve much more than choosing lighting fixtures and decorative objects. What challenges have you faced so far?

People. The ones you need to fulfill a vision with. My schedule changes even five times an hour, and I realized that flexibility is a trait without which you have no chance in this field. Being able to adapt, understand everyone, manage all possible problems and all types of people, so that in the end, your project happens as you envisioned it.

I noticed in your portfolio an affinity for materials such as wood and marble and for minimalist yet warm and refined designs. Do you work intuitively, or are there artists and studios that constantly inspire you?

You said it so well. Intuition defines me in relation to every project I’ve had, regardless of the field. It certainly has to do with a visual culture, too that I have developed over the years. But when I talk to the client, I place a lot of emphasis on understanding their desires, affinities, and rituals. I really want the place to meet their needs and feel real. You shouldn’t feel like you’re entering this impeccable place where you’re somehow afraid to live. And coming back to natural materials, for me they are essential elements in any project.

What would you like to learn or explore further in interior design?

I continue to learn, and am currently training in commercial spaces. One of my dreams is to one day create an extremely chic spa.

When Lines Refuse to Rest: A Journey Through Dumitru Gorzo’s Chaos and Color

When I arrived at the Museum of Recent Art (MARe) for the opening of Dumitru Gorzo’s new exhibition, I immediately felt immersed in the whole experience. From the monumental artist-made chalk mural stretched across the museum’s façade to the dense interior layers of painting, sculpture, and bas-reliefs, Gorzo takes over every surface. Walking through the halls of the museum, I felt what curator Dan Popescu called “the adventure of drawing.” Gorzo’s line never rests: it multiplies, morphs, gains volume, becomes painting, becomes chaos, becomes an orchestra of forms and powerful colors.

All of the works are in dialogue with one another, in a conversation that is rare in local contemporary art life. You can “hear” the works of art when you look not just ahead, but diagonally, perpendicularly, or in parallel, as if the works whisper and argue across the rooms. I admired his Gorzolănii, those opaque monsters, at first familiar, then absurd, then alarmingly (almost) possible. They converse with our unconscious, a voice of something personal and ancestral. I could see why Popescu described them as “abyssal voices.”

But what struck me most was the decision to place a recurring form – “a Christ without a cross”, like Gorzo calls it, on the museum’s frontispiece. It’s at once sacred and defiant, echoing a Vitruvian Man, a fetus, or an angel – depending on where you stand. “Anything facing the street must problematize,” Popescu reminded us. And Gorzo does just that. He doesn’t comfort; he provokes.

The exhibition lingers like an aftertaste. And for the first time, visitors are not just observers but witnesses to creation itself.

For Romanian art, this is the first time that a local artist is exhibited in this museum and not just in an art gallery. Which makes this exhibition more than just an occasion of presentation and sightseeing. It’s a statement that our most daring voices do not merit side rooms or nostalgic retrospectives, but to be brought before the audience on the best stages. And what better Romanian artist there is, than Dumitru Gorzo, to open the path for others? His work comes unapologetically direct, occasionally scandalous, often very uncomfortable but always alive with the urgency of a man who cannot decorate reality. He has been for many a compass for how Romanian contemporary art might emerge when it dared to gaze into the eyes of the world.

When I walked out of MARe’s opening event, I couldn’t shake its title from my mind: “Vrea cineva să fie eu?” / “Does Anyone Want to Be Me?”. It is both a provocation and a challenge to how we think about identity in the contemporary art landscape. And that’s exactly what makes Gorzo’s voice irreplaceable.

Oana Vasiliu is a storyteller with over 15 years of experience in cultural and lifestyle journalism, with a focus on arts and the ways culture shapes communities. She has a newsletter called UMAMI Moments, where culture meets anthropology, travel, and narrative journalism.

EDITOR’S PICKS

Every month I share with you the things that caught my eye during my trips around the city or around the world. For this edition you’ll find a bit of everything, where is literature, design, culture or travel.

A restaurant I’ve been to and recommend trying is Belgrad 3. Situated in one of the most chic and green neighbourhoods of Bucharest, with a big lush garden with jazz music, this restaurant serves delicious food and even more delicious cocktails. The raclette potatoes are to die for.

A book I read recently and enjoyed very much is Lust for life, by Irving Stone. Known for his biographies of some very famous people, Irving Stone reached success with this book that presents 16 years of the life of Van Gogh. What a book and what a painter! It made me love the artist and rooting to buy a ticket to Amsterdam, to visit again the Museum of Van Gogh and get lost in his beautiful works of art.

A country I visited and missed was Greece, more specifically the island of Thasos. An island I have first visited in 2019 and tried to return yearly ever since. Something we didn’t manage to do in the last 2 years. What we love about Thasos is its greenery and mountainous landscape. It is such a pitoresque island to visit, especially if you do it at the end of the season, when it’s empty, the sea is still warm and restaurants are still open. I recommend visiting Panagia and stop for lunch or dinner at Utopia, then head down south to Agia Anna or Notos Beach – wild and oh, so beautiful!

A brand I discovered and blew my mind is Fior Art Studio. A very special and newly opened ceramics studio, where artist Loredana Munteanu creates unique pieces inspired by earth, roots and the beauty that comes from a slow-placed life. Combining clay with porcelain, wool or straw, her pieces are timeless.

An event I went to and got inspired was Unfinished, the festival of ideas, growth and connection. 2025 marked their 10th anniversary and my first edition. I enjoyed the inspiring talks with artists from all over the world, with really different backgrounds. It’s the kind of festival where you get to have deep conversations with people you just met.

An artist I’ve discovered and stayed with me is Ioana Ciuciulica, whose graduation project can be seen at DIPLOMA. A big painting composed of textile art that provokes us to think about the silent power of small gestures repeated with meaning. Not to be missed if you visit the exhibition, opened until the 12th of October at Hanul Gabroveni.

See you in a month!

L x