The Giants of Pantelimon have chosen their Artists
Who are the five artists that will draw the neighborhood’s stories for Giants of Pantelimon Street Art Days, three days of community art, street art, graffiti, music, dance, movies, workshops, live painting sessions and many more? What happens between 13th and 15th of October at Make a Point and which big names of the international street art are coming to Bucharest for this event?
Following the Call for Artists in July, 41 Romanian and international artists joined Giants of Pantelimon, a project by Make a Point, for bringing the stories of the neighbourhood to life. The project was launched this spring, when Make a Point invited the people in the neighborhood to tell their stories. Now, during the Giants of Pantelimon Street Art Days which will take place between the 13th and 15th of October 2017 the same stories, interpreted by artists, will be painted on the roofs of several former industrial warehouses in the area.
The call for artists came with a collection of stories gathered by anthropologist Andreea Dragan, stories that you can read in detail here. Artists from South Africa, Austria, France, Germany, India, Italy, Kenia, Namibia, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Serbia, U.S., Thailand, and also Romanian artists from Urlati, Sibiu, Constanta, Piatra Neamt and, of course, Bucharest let their creativity flow, working with the local stories of Pantelimon, from life in communism to the long and on-going transition towards democracy.
Although all the proposals that reached us are unique creations and each of them deserves a chance, yet… being a contest, we needed to decide on five winners for now. They are: Sorina Tomulețiu, Robert Obert, Onar Stănescu, Nada Krstajić and Alexandra Cristiana Comănici. During the Giants of Pantelimon Street Art Days, we invite you to watch them painting the roofs, and if you want even to help them do it. And, you can also vote for your favorite artwork!
The five stories chosen by the artists
Tom (Sorina Tomuletiu) named her project an eco-friendly installation made of grass, “Where No One Looks”. Sorina was impressed by the story of the urban spaces where the nature manages to survive under the indifferent eye of the passers-by. Her message will draw attention on the lack of clarity in managing the public space, the places “hidden in plain sight” that nobody cares for.
Robert Obert interprets the story of the woman sent by the factory to measure the radiation level after the tragedy of Chernobyl. Robert’s motivation? “The device which measured radiation level, but also the traces left on a woman who went saw a lot in life and the irony behind the task, the indifference of the few towards the many who became insignificant mass.”
Onar Stanescu was intrigued by the colours behind the grey blocks, where the people hang their clothes to dry, live, love, fight, look for their meaning in life while making their living in the concrete layers of the city.
Nada Krstajic, from Belgrade, will paint a human-city mandala, a “hora” (a Romanian dance in which the performers form a ring) made of life and concrete. In the Serbian artist’s vision, the contemporary architecture with its modern buildings next to old blocks of apartments is mixing with the industrial architecture, and all of them alternate in a colourful dance between people and nature.
Alexandra Cristina Comanici comes with strings attached. Using mannequins and strings – former materials of the factories in the area – she will illustrate bits of every story of the neighbourhood, the generation with the key around the neck, the work in the spinnery, the period when we were no more than puppets of a fallen regime.
Who else is coming to the Giants of Pantelimon Street Art Days?
Giants of Pantelimon Street Art Days is the first community street art festival in Romania. They will take place on the weekend of 13th to 15th of October in the Make a Point cultural space as well as in and around the Art Tower of Pantelimon, and most of all on the roofs of the former factories of the neighbourhood. The five finalists will create their artworks live, while in the indoor and outdoor space of Make a Point various workshops, dance performances, photography exhibitions, calligraphy classes will be held.
We also invited some of the most renowned internartional artists from the scene: Ella & Pitr (France), the creators of the biggest roof paintings in the world, Moose (UK), the artist whoinvented reverse graffiti, Martha Cooper (USA), who will convince the skeptics through her photography that street art is the form of art which probably has the biggest impact on societies around the world and Victor Ash (Denmark), the creator of iconic pieces of wall from his Sun City anti-apartheid mural of the eighties to the kosmonaut in Berlin.
Carmen Nistor from Romania will join the Giants of Pantelimon with a free class of calligraphy and because Biancoshock this August enjoyed being with us in Bucharest, he will return from Italy to Make a Point. The full program of Giants of Pantelimon Street Art Days you will find here. Admission is free, fun guaranteed!
Come join us for the Giants of Pantelimon Street Art Days, 13th to 15th of October 2017 at Make a Point and discover the urban art by Romanian and international artists on the roofs of Pantelimon, or register for our free workshops and take part in the public art events!
Find out more on our Facebook page.
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About Make a Point
Make a Point looks back on 10 years of experience in reconverting and reinventing industrial spaces, cultural intervention, as well as starting art projects in a place where the access to culture is limited by the lack of public infrastructure. At the begginings of Make a Point association stand the rehabilitation and transformation of a former industrial space into a cultural center. A former section of a textile factory became a modern exhibition space as well as projection space, and community library. In one of our last big projects, we transformed the old water tower of the factory into an unique art installation, at the same time keeping its utility and functionality.
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About Giants of Pantelimon
Giants of Pantelimon is a community art project by Madalina Rosca and Paul Arne Wagner, starting in 2016 with a pilot featuring the first painting on a factory roof in Bucharest. In the spring of 2017, the project continued with Andreea Dragan’s neighborhood story hunt followed by the international call for artists. Giants of Pantelimon Street Art Days will be the climax of the first (2017) edition of the project.
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Giants of Pantelimon is a Make a Point project
The project is financed within the cultural program “Bucharest, participative city” by the Bucharest City Hall, through the Cultural Center of Bucharest ARCUB and co-financed by the Administration of the National Fund for Culture (AFCN).
Partners: Red Bull, Havana Club, Aqua Carpatica, Italian Institute of Culture, French Institute, Danish Arts Foundation, Frufru, Pegas Bicycles, Hotel Est
Mobility partner: Uber
Media partners: Radio Guerrilla, Scena9, Vice, Igloo, IQads, noizz.ro, Festivalier
(list in course of being updated)
