ERSTE Foundation announces the launch of tranzit.ro
tranzit.ro to become fully active in the beginning of 2012 in Bucharest, Iasi
and Cluj
www.erstestiftung.org/project/tranzit
tranzit.ro is a non-governmental organisation based in Romania, initiated and funded by ERSTE Foundation, with the mission to identify and discuss the context, attitudes and methods of contemporary art, especially in Romania and East-Europe.
tranzit.ro becomes thus the fifth member of tranzit.org, a network of, so far, four independent, non-profit organisations in Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary and the Slovak Republic. tranzit association was founded in 2002, and since 2010 ERSTE Foundation has become its main partner. tranzit has been developing artistic and cultural activities with a critical approach, fostering a permanent dialectic between local and global culture. tranzit serves as a platform which aims to inform all those who are active in the international art world about the developments of the contemporary art scene in Central and Eastern Europe.
tranzit was one of the three curatorial groups responsible for the artistic content of Manifesta 8, the European Biennial of Contemporary Art, which took place in the Region of Murcia during 9 October 2010–9 January 2011.
The main aim of the new tranzit.ro is to encourage contemporary art practices developed in Romania within different local socio-cultural contexts, through a wide range of activities, such as: debates, informal meetings, seminars, lectures, theoretical and practical workshops, art and documentary exhibitions, screenings, concerts, artistic and cultural interventions, publications etc.
“We selected the tranzit.ro members through a closed call, with nine invitations having been sent out to representatives of the contemporary cultural field. After receiving the proposals, a self-constituted group of five people was nominated (Matei Bejenaru, Livia Pancu, Lia Perjovschi, Attila Tordai-S, Raluca Voinea). The new tranzit.ro will open spaces not only in Bucharest, but also in Iasi and Cluj, this being a different approach compared to the other tranzit organisations (which operate through one space in each country), focusing on decentralization, cooperation and mobility”, said Christine Boehler, member of tranzit Board of Directors and Director of Culture Programme of ERSTE Foundation.
With its multiple centres and mobility, tranzit.ro will represent a breakthrough in the institutional landscape of Romania, dominated by self-sufficient and conservative positions. It will enhance the collaborative aspect of the general tranzit network and, at the same time, it will be more efficient on a long term in stimulating new and diverse productions, by escaping the limitations of a single, closed art scene.
With tranzit.ro being part of the tranzit.org network, the Romanian cultural practitioners (curators, artists, art critics, writers, theorists etc) will have access to the network’s international programmes, such as: Artist-in-Residence programme, through which artists are given the opportunity to live and work for two months in a MuseumsQuartier studio in Vienna; ERSTE Foundation Fellowship for Emerging Curators, which appoints curators to take part in the curatorial course at the International Summer Academy of Fine Arts in Salzburg; The György Kepes Fellowship for Advanced Studies and Transdisciplinary Research in Art, Culture and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Boston, USA) Program in Art, Culture and Technology (ACT).
For more information about ERSTE Foundation and tranzit.org, please see below:
www.erstestiftung.org/project/tranzit
www.tranzit.org
ERSTE Foundation
Programme Culture
culture@erstestiftung.org
www.erstestiftung.org
