Off the map: In Bucharest

Opening Date: 2006-Oct-12
Closing Date: 2006-Nov-16
This 25 minute video looks at Bucharest as an extreme example of urban restructuring. Made collaboratively with Ioana Marinescu, a Romanian architectural historian and photographer, the video takes a documentary approach to consider the effects of Ceaucescu's massive destruction and rebuilding of the centre of the city in the 1980s. Forty thousand homes were destroyed, an unknown number of residents were relocated, churches and monuments were moved. In their place is an unfinished urban wilderness. Using contemporary footage intercut with archival photographs and interviews the video creates an elegiac sense of displacement, combining my own outsider's viewpoint with that of a former resident - Marinescu.
First shown at Bucharest Biennial in 2006 the video is regularly screened for its architectural aspect (Architecture Association, Luxembourg Architecture Association, UCL Bartlett School of Architecture) and for its specifically Romanian content (Romanian Cultural Institute London screening at the Courtauld Institute of Art, Bucharest a Tale of Two Cities in Paris) It gained a Silver Award at the Festival of Nations film festival in Ebensee Austria.