Réalisation d'un dossier de présentation de l'événement d'art contemporain - Art Encounters". Réalisation d'interviews, bénévolat en tant que médiatrice culturelle. Dans le cadre d'une année erasmus à l'université de l'ouest de Timisoara (Roumanie), cours de management de projet culturel. Réalisé en anglais.

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Raphaëlle
Sleurs
Cultural project management
Erasmus Student

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Contents
ArtEncounters ................................................................
Education program ........................................................
Places of exhibition and artists ....................................
Volunteers ......................................................................
Data ................................................................................
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ArtEncounters was a contemporary art exhibi-
tion in Timisoara during last october. From 3rd
october to 31st october 2015, people from Ti-
misoara could find more than 12 places around
the city with workshops, exhibitions, talks with
artists… It was a biennale of art with artists
whose worked about Romania concepts or
whose are from Romania. With more than 16
000 visitors, this first edition was a great suc-
cess.
I met Anouk Lederlé, who was in the heart of
this project, in fact, she did a master’s degree
in cultural policy and management at the uni-
versity of Belgrade and her subject of memory
talked about the importance of ArtEncounters in
the perspective of Timisoara, capital of culture
in Europe 2021. It’s also thanks to her I became
volunteer for this event.
But what is ArtEncounters ? Who were the or-
ganizers and what were the goals ?
First when we’re talking about an art event, we
need to talk about the curators. Curators are
the person in charge to select the artists and to
give the way of the exhibition. For ArtEncoun-
ters, the main curators were Nathalie Hoyos
and Rainald Shumacher. Both of them have ex-
cellent knowledges of Est Europe and Europe
in general. They were responsible or curators
of exhibitions all around Europe like Germany
and Austria. And since 2010 they were working
together, as for example, at the Office for art in
Berlin and they started to work around the Eas-
tern Europe being curators of the “fragile sense
of hope” in 2014.
Secondly, for the organization of an art event,
and event in general, we need to talk about the
financement and who ordered this exhibition.
This event starts with a man, Ovidiu Sandor.
Ovidiu Sandor is a businessman and also an
art collector. It’s thanks to him that ArtEncoun-
ters exists. Ovidiu Sandor is involved in the
romania art and he’s the president of the “Ar-
tEncounters Foundation”, founded in 2015. The
goals of this foundation is to develop the art in
Romania, the art from romania and mostly the
contemporary art, in a national and internatio-
nal level. Develop romanian art means support
young artists, promote artistic productions and
new forms of artistic practices/expressions. It’s
also a very good way to create the encounter
between a large public came from all horizons
and the artists.
The first draft of ArtEncounters was far away
from what it’s been. Indeed, Ovidiu Sandor was
thinking about just an exhibition of contempora-
ry art. But rapidly, this draft became a huge pro-
ject, after only 8 months, it became a biennale,
organized in two towns, in Arad and Timisoara.
8 months to organize the project, who were the
partners, who financed ?
For the financial part, Ovidiu Sandor contacted
the town of Timisoara in order to get some fi-
nancial support. We can’t forgot that Timisoa-
ra is one of the candidate to be capital of the
culture in Europe for 2021. So it was a really in-
teresting project in the way of the elections, Ti-
misoara didn’t hesitate to get support and was
very enthusiastic by the idea. The others funds
came from private institutions or people being
part of Ovidiu Sandor’s relations.
The whole project cost 200 000 euros , 50 000
euros from the support of Timisoara and the
rest from the private funds.
Since this moment, the organization started
and the first meeting with partners began. All
cultural institutions of Timisoara as theatre and
cultural institutes have been contacted and
each of them had a main role for ArtEncoun-
ters. The main cultural institutions were the
German cultural center for the part of logistics
and transportation and the french cultural cen-
ter for the education program and volunteers
management.
ArtEncounters
Timisoara
3rd - 31st October 2015

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How could the french cultural center and the
creation of education programs get young
people interested in contemporary art ?
The french cultural center, presided by Daniel
Malbert, has been contacted for its knowledges
in education in order to create a program
for children and pupils from kindergarten to
highschool. This program was called “Pas-
seport”, was composed in 4 differents levels
adapted for each age. The goal of those pro-
grams was to get in young people to ask ques-
tion about art, to discover this contemporary
world, to involve their culture. Most of them ne-
ver been in a art museum and never been in
touch with art.
Let’s see closer this educa-
tion program !

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Education
Program
This education program was coordinated by
Ingrid and Delia from the french institute. With
the help of Anouk, who knew already the or-
ganisation of Art Encounters and the different
artists, they chose 3 places to discover with the
schools. The education program gave ludic ga-
mes for pupils, and some information to know
better the artists and art contemporary culture.
Teachers could also find a trail if they want to
discover the others places. The main goal of
the education program was to keep some me-
mories for the children and to get them to ask
questions. In fact, according to Anouk, only
10% of them were already been in a art exhi-
bition, for most of them it was a first encounter
with art.
Dear teachers, would you like to come with your
pupils discover an exhibition of art ?!
Ingrid and Delia contacted all the schools of Ti-
misoara, from kindergarten to highschool, final-
ly more than 4000 pupils came to ArtEncoun-
ters with more than 110 teachers. But their job
didn’t stop there, they also followed teachers in
this experience in order to help them with the
encounter between art and pupils. A daytime
was organized just for the teachers to show
them the different exhibitions and the education
program was in free access on the ArtEncoun-
ters’s website. During the visit with their pupils,
the teachers were followed by the cultural me-
diators. In total, there had been more than

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4 600 pupils discovering this event. From
which 161 came from kindergarten, 955 from
primary, 1295 from middle school, 2195 from
high school.
What do pupils have retained about ArtEn-
counters ?
I was interested to know what pupils thought
about their experiences with ArtEncounters,
so I met a class from High School and their
teacher. They shared with me their visions of
art and this exhibition. Only few of them were
already been in an art institution, including
Opera, Theatre and art museum. To complete
the exhibition, at the end, the teacher gave
them some works to do, a paper about the ex-
hibition. Being in a bilingual class, pupils com-
binated french and art !
It’s through talks with their and more with their
written work I get their feelings. Their com-
ments were made by innocence and poetry,
but I can see the curiosity created by ArtEn-
counters.
“Art Encounters est un point où les
artistes et les amateurs d’art se ren-
contrent pour parler, communiquer
et changer d’opinions.”
Szokola Adelina
“L’art donne naissance à des signi-
fications et “définitions”. Pourquoi
une galerie d’art et nécessaire ?
Pour apprendre le secret des grands
artistes. Souvent le secret n’est pas
déchiffré, mais l’essentiel est de
“rester dans le brouillon”, de ne pas
forcément donner de définition, les
règles varient d’une personne à une
autre.” Seimac Narcisa

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Lycée Calderon - Classe 9D
Coloana Infinitului -
Brancusi
“Art encounters a comme but de créer un dia-
logue entre les artistes et le public, de deve-
lopper l’art en société”
“L’art se fait avec du temps” Chroui-Cozma
Ioana
I propose to see some artist’s works
through the view of the pupils …
(I let the comments in french, they translated romanian to french
for the teacher and I think the simplicity of their comments takes
place on it).
Alwin Lay
“J’ai vu des autres photos qui présentent la
vie quotidienne dans la régime Ceaucescu.
Ces photos sont comme un film d’horreur.
On peut voir des rues désolées, des files
de peuple qui attendent pour la nourriture
et des gens qui ne sourient pas.
Cette exposition m’a aidé à comprendre
le passé de mon pays pendant le régime
Ceaucescu. Après avoir visiter l’exposi-
tion, je peux dire que la la population de
cette periode n’ont pas été très heureux
parce qu’ils devaient attendre pour la nour-
riture et parce qu’ils n’avaient pas le droit
de s’exprimer.” Dusen Andreea
Andrei Pendele
“Ils voulaient faire de l’arbre un symbole plus
riche pour ne pas montrer la pauvreté et le peu
de ressources” Marusania Petronela

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Places of exhibitions
and Artists
The choice of the different places for this exhibition is really important and give a real meaning for ar-
tist’s works. Moreover it get interested visitors because places were really uncommon and some of
them formerly abandoned like Cazarma U which was before a brownfield, or the very old synagogue
in the city center. A lot of visitors came to visit more by curiosity to see what’s happening in this diffe-
rent places that they were never been able to visit, than for the artistic exhibition. But it was a good
thing because visitors discovered both an uncommon place and an international contemporary art
exhibition. Some of the places get meaning through the exhibition, like the museum of revolution,
which hosted an exhibition about art against communism historical period.
Cazarma U : the Art Guest House
ArtEncounters was also the moment to discover the contemporary art from Romania.
One of the places of exhibition in ArtEncounters was just composed by different art galleries in Ro-
mania : the Art Guest House in Cazarma U. People could see how the art is involved in Romania just
going in one exhibition. It was a really good point to realize the importance of romanian artist in the
artistic world and to have an overview of all galleries of the country. Visitors could find more than 30
artists exposed in galleries from Bucharest, Timisoara, Cluj-Napoca and Craiova.

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The synagogue and Iona Nemesh : A private experience for each visitors
The synagogue was choose to present a work of Iona Nemesh, this place was in total accordance
with the artist’s work. Iona Nemesh was on track for a career as professional handball player when
she had some knees problems and an injury which forced her to stop her career. After that, she
had to change the plan of her life and decided to become an artist, starting at the art academy of
Bucharest. One of her work was called “the Wall project”. This project was a way to take stock in
her life, on the wall of her dinner room she pinned things she wanted to do in her life and things she
already achieved. Through this “Wall project” she developed a method to analyze her life every day
with colors in function of her daily mood, in order to, each year, make a graphic and see what she
can control or not in her life. With this project, she also made an interview of herself, recorded, it’s
this work which was exposed in the Synagogue. This interview of herself illustrates and comments
the development of “the Wall project” but also help people to understand the mental construction
of the project. Ioana Nemesh wanted this interview become a personal experience for each visitors
who are just sitting and listening her vision of her work. The synagogue, which is a religious and spi-
ritual space, was perfect for this personal experience, without parasit noises, let the visitors looking
this very old space, built between 1862 and 1865, through listening an art project.
Exhibitions which retrieve a past feeling of artistic vibrancy
More than interesting places, Timisoara had been choose to be the host of this exhibition for its ar-
tistic history. Timisoara is knew to be a revolutionary town and open-minded with the international.
Through the communism period, the art was kind of died but Timisoara was special and the freedom
was fighting with art. Around 1960, Timisoara was one of the most dynamic centers of romanian
contemporary arts. There were two main organizations which involved for artistic expression and
written the main art history of Timisoara : the Sigma group and the Eastern European Zone Festival
which promoted new visual concepts.
During the communism period, a group of artists involved in artistic performances and new way of
art : the Sigma Group. Composed by teachers at the fine art academy in Timisoara, Sigma Group
was an experimental group active in Timisoara between 1969-1980. In 1978, they exposed their
main work : the film Multivision. Composed by colored semi-transparent screens and in the same
time projections in black&white and colors, it was the first multimedia installation in Romania.

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Between 1993 and 2002, a new wave of art became with the Eastern European Zone Festival in
Timisoara. It was a performance art festival composed by debates (cultural, artistic and politic), on
public direct contact, performances and art installations. This event gave a new image to the artistic
space in Romania and was the skeleton of what is the romanian contemporary art today. This festi-
val was organized in the former Austrian Palace which is now the Art Museum.
Thanks to ArtEncounters, visitors could see their historical works through pictures, movies and
works exposed and could understand that Timisoara gets its own history in art. ArtEncounters’s
organisation wanted to retrieve this feeling of artistic vibrancy.

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For this huge event, the organizers
need volunteers, in order to com-
municate with the public, to keep
galleries, and to give information.
The role of the volunteer is to be
the link between the artist and the
public, they are really important.
In fact, it’s thank to them that the
public will understand the diffe-
rent works of the artists and give
the meaning. And I know what I’m
saying because I was in the vo-
lunteer team and for me it was a
great experience.
How works a volunteer team ?
We were managed by the team of
the french cultural institute in par-
ticular Ingrid and of course Anouk.
We are 75 volunteers in totally,
some were really invested in this
project. Every weeks we had a
meeting in order to talks about the
organisation, to know which galle-
ries we were going to keep. We could also write our name in an online document, thanks to it we
were independant to chose where to go and with whom to work.
A day was organized before the opening of ArtEncounters for volunteers, they learnt to become a
cultural mediator. It was a visit of all galleries with a professional mediator who explained them the
different works of artists. After that, we could find all information online. Most of the volunteers were
Romanian but also spoke english. It was a really good things to help the international level of ArtEn-
counters. And it helped me to be integrated into the team.
Be volunteer : an involving work
More than just quote the artist feelings about their works, we needed to give our own feelings and
vision, it wasn’t easy at the beginning but we’ve learn’t a lot about it. We needed to have an interac-
tion with the public, to share each other our vision. Every mediators had a different vision like every
visitors and a simple visit could be very interesting to talk.
Be volunteer and become a young art collector
At the end of ArtEncounters, a last meeting have been organised in order to taking stock of this first
edition. The work of all volunteers represents in total 232 hours of mediation with visitors, organizers
were happy of this edition of ArtEncounters. Of course, Ovadia Sandor, the president of the foun-
dation, was present and gave to volunteers an amazing gift. Every volunteer did receive an original
draw from the artist Dan Perjovschi, a nice way to end this human adventure for lovers of art !
Volunteers

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ArtEncounters with Datas
2 cities :
Arad & Timisoara
17 places of exhibitions
8 places with cultural mediators
10 event locations
75 cultural mediators (volunteers)
232 hours of meditation
16069 visitors in 8 places with cultural mediators, from 6th to 31 october
Guest House (Cazarma U) : the most visited
602 visitors - Saturday, October 20
117 teachers 4606 students :
161 Kindergarten
955 Primary
1295 Middle school
2195 High school
Twitter : @TmArtEncounters
47 tweets
400 followers
Instagram : timisoaraartencounters
76 posts
221 followers
Facebook : ArtEncounters
10 010 likes
GUIDE

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