Departing from several lesser-known historical episodes, ‘Land of Fire’ is interested in some lines of exclusion in both historical and art historical discourses in Romania, involving moments of darkness as well as progressive occurrences. This process raises several questions: which groups, along with their stories, images, and perspectives, have been left out from Romania’s ongoing process of self-imagination, from ethnic communities to social groups? Which narratives from the undercurrents of Romanian history continue to be ignored?
In 1885—the year in which some European countries drew up a plan in Berlin to divide the African continent among themselves, ushering some of the bloodiest decades of genocides and land grabs around the world—a young man from an even younger country arrived in Argentina. Over the next few years, the Bucharest-born Iuliu Popper would become one of the most powerful conquerors and settlers of Tierra del Fuego archipelago at the tip of the South American continent, and a major perpetrator of the genocide against the Selk’nam people. Issuing his own currency and stamps from Tierra del Fuego, his ambitions were as grand as they were bloody and were only cut short by his untimely (and possibly orchestrated) death. Among these ideas was a pioneering and megalomaniacal plan for a colony in Antarctica, connected by a direct route to his stronghold in Tierra del Fuego, where he (re-)named mountains after the Romanian royal couple Carmen Sylva and Carol I and perhaps settled other Romanians. While the genocide of the Selk’nam, alongside their continuous survival and connection to their ancestral lands, was formally recognized by the Chilean Congress only last year, this atrocity and the central role played by a Romanian (a corresponding member of the Romanian Geographical Society, no less) in its execution are almost entirely unacknowledged in Romania. But this history is less hidden in Romanian culture and society than we might think and has run close to the surface of a very murky stream.
Artists: Claudia Andujar, Florin Bobu, Alex Bodea, Tony Chakar, Ana Deji, Megan Dominescu, Mihaela Drăgan, Ion Dumitrescu, Chitra Ganesh, Alexandra Gulea, Loredana Ilie, Sakarin Krue-On, Ivana Mladenović, Nicoleta Moise, Silvia Moldovan, Elisabeta and Emilia Morar, Veda Popovici and Mircea Nicolae, Maria Prodan, Citra Sasmita, Ștefan Sava, Ultima Esperanza, Sana Shahmuradova Tanska, Robel Temesgen, Hans Mattis-Teusch, Mona Vătămanu and Florin Tudor, Mark Verlan, Cecilia Vicuña, Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Curator Cosmin Costinaș
Co-curators Mona Vătămanu and Florin Tudor
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The exhibition “Land of Fire” is an event organised by Fundația Calina, produced by Kunsthalle Bega and co-financed by the Ministry of Culture through the Center for Projects and co-financed by the Administration of the National Cultural Fund.
Lands of Fire
Oct 18, 2024 – Feb 2, 2025
Kunsthalle Bega
Timisoara, Romania
