„The answering Machine" exhibition
November 10, 2017
"The Answering Machine", an exhibition by which the Faculty of Architecture and City Planning of Timișoara represented Romania at Vienna Design Week, will be also exhibited with the occasion of the UPT anniversary!
The Faculty of Architecture and City Planning of Timișoara (FAUT) represented Romania at the most important festival dedicated to the culture of design in Austria, VIENA DESIGN WEEK. At its 11th edition, the festival unfolded over 190 events dedicated to design and architecture in the 15th district of Vienna, perhaps the most cosmopolitan district of the Austrian capital.
The curatorial efforts of the teams representing Romania, as the country invited to this edition, were visible in one of the two central pavilions of the festival, namely the former night asylum for refugees, known as Blaues Haus, between September 29 and October 8, 2017.
In the context of the exhibition "The Answering Machine" was a special presence, bringing together the theme of the festival (design) in relation to the institution it represents, proposing to the public a process presented in three parallel sequences:
- The exhibition presented its own (students, graduates and the school itself) experience of migration; what determines it, what mediates it and what effects it produces.
- Being architects, we used the 15th district, the 10-day, seven students and the teachers to explore to what extent the experience of migration-specific exchange is facilitated by people's belonging to a particular physical or cultural space
- The debate has placed around the big table of the exhibition, both representatives of the school (students, graduates, teachers, dean) and representatives of the Romanian Diaspora in Vienna.
The curiosity and appreciation of the Vienna Design Week audience made the organizers of the exhibition an incentive to continue this process also within the machine-at-home, at FAUT. The huge yellow mass will be installed in the faculty space, where we hope it will become an active tool to support the continuous process of analysis and recalibration through which any higher education institution is wishing to stay connected, authentic and relevant constantly passes.
Thus, the exhibition will be presented in Timișoara during the events dedicated to the anniversary of the Politehnica University Timișoara, in the Club of the Faculty of Civil Engineering and Architecture, located at the basement of the Traian Lalescu street no. 2 / A, from 10.11 to 10.12.2017. The opening of the exhibition will take place on 10.11.2017 at 11.00.
About the Exhibition:
The Answering Machine, the exhibition concept proposed by the curators' team of FAUT speculates the special context of the 15th district, bringing into discussion the theme of migration of school graduates from Timişoara. Romania's accession to the European Union 10 years ago has allowed its citizens to move freely, to study, to do research, and to experience by their own means the feeling of belonging to a United Europe. However, the economic and social crises of recent years have placed unprecedented pressure on this newly gained paradigm of mobility. 17% of Romania's population lives today outside the country's borders. 18.8% of FAUT graduates have relocated to Vienna, London, Berlin or Paris. During this time the labor market has come to be judged according to double standards, which draw lines between East and West, between cultures and attitudes. From the earliest times in the vanguard of migratory flows, the architects surprised through their person, but mostly through the work done for the communities in whose midst they operated, the patterns and the problems of this type of intercultural exchange.
In particular, this type of experience existed between Vienna and Timișoara. Both are places with a multicultural tradition. We wonder how far these cities, in the context of the crisis of contemporary migration, can preserve their reputation by learning from each other? And because the future belongs to the cities, to what extent the migration of the architects and their homogenization can affect the feeling of belonging to a particular place or culture?
The exhibition proposes possible answers, following both the subjective testimonies of the former graduates and the statistical data capturing the topography of this new European geography. At the same time, the FAUT students' workshop explored the Belonging theme of the problem belonging to a place, space, city, territory, trying to find those clues that can provide a possible picture of our European future.
About organizers:
The Answering Machine exhibition is organized by the Faculty of Architecture and City Planning in Timișoara, with the support of the Politehnica University, the Romanian Architects Order and Timiș County Branch and OCE Software.
The curators' team is composed of representatives of the FAUT design workshops: Cristian Blidariu and Marius Găman for the 1st year, Claudiu Toma and Ana Branea for the 2nd year, Miodrag Popov for the 3rd year, Bogdan Demetrescu and Oana Simionescu for the 4th year, Gabriela Pascu for the 5th year, Sandra Andrei and Alexandra Oprea - fresh graduates of FAUT, 6th year; as well as by Ioan Andreescu, the dean of the faculty, who will take part in the debate that will complete the exhibition on 7 October.
The team of students who participated in the TAW exhibition and the related workshop was composed of: Florin Buzgău, David Dumitrescu, Rebeca Faur, Iulia Stancu, Ştefania Dumulesc, Amanda Lucan and Bianca Budurean.
