WHAT IS THE MAIN IDEA OF THE PROJECT AND WHO IS THE TARGET GROUP?

What you can’t choose in life are your relatives and your neighbours. This almost fatalistic perspective is interesting considering that the family and the neighbourhood are social structures present in all societies.

Unlike the family, which relies on shared genes, the neighbourhood is based on spatial/territorial proximity. It is structured on the relation of transgressing the limits, without denying but depending on them.

How can the neighbourhood concept be defined today when the diversity of the referential context opens up multiple horizons? This project invited participating artists to find an answer to this question.

Structured around the concept of neighbourhood, the project starts the debate around a series of notions that should define any kind of social relationship: tolerance, equality, respect for human dignity, solidarity, respect for cultural diversity.

Although originally based on the principle of efficiency in the relationship between private and public life, the neighbourhood tends to become a “social non-place”, a forced “passage” imposed by collective dwelling.

Despite the increase in individual mobility, opportunities to communicate have decreased. The multiplicity of encounters dilutes our attention. The interest and the emotional involvement towards the other, defining a psychological frame of mistrust, indifference, aversion or even hostility: we don’t know our neighbours and we don’t want to know them.

The efficiency of the neighbourhood system functions more and more only in crisis situations. Beyond the individual alienation generated by neo-liberal development, today's Romanian society inherits a strong fragmentation, a trace of the totalitarian experience. The massive social displacements of the communist times, from the rural to the urban areas, determined the transformation of neighbourhood relations under the effect of individualism and lack of concern for public space.

The contemporary neighbourhood is defined not only by proximity and sharing of common interests and objectives, but also by the plurality of perspectives and a diversity of approaches. Only the application of a set of values can determine an efficient and harmonious functioning of the neighbourhood structure. It should look not only to the present but take responsibility for future generations.

As the coordinates of private space start to overlap the public one, the experience of neighbourhood is close enough but it is also given a confusingly definition in order to become a visual research subject.

WHAT DOES THE PROJECT INCLUDE?

It was a communication platform that includes a call for projects, a series of awards, but also a series of theoretical seminars and a travelling exhibition, accompanied by a catalogue.

The second edition of the project invited Romanian artists to reflect on the theme of Neighbourhood – a daily practice of social values. This general theme brings into discussion sensitive concepts in Romanian society, such as: cooperation, tolerance, equality, (self) respect, solidarity and understanding the positive role of (cultural) diversity.

The artists are invited to express through visual means the way that "neighbourhood" - in a Romanian society that wishes to be considered a European one - reflects a set of values, not only at a conceptual level, but on a practical level as well. The media invited are: photography, video, animation, web art, object, multiples, participative projects, interventions in public space.

The project schedule included the following steps: a preparatory stage; a pre-selection and the final stage; installing and transporting of the exhibition to different venues; launching the catalogue and awarding the prizes.

Participation in the first stage was compulsory. It aimed to provide a basis for better understanding the theme. It consisted of two seminars organised simultaneously in Bucharest, Cluj, Iasi and Timisoara (in March 2007).

The second stage consisted of a pre-selection of artistic projects. The pre-selection took into consideration whether the projects submitted fitted into the given theme. The artistic quality of the project and its originality were also considered. The selected works were included in the exhibition and in the catalogue, and they were also submitted as part of the final contest.

The final stage included the installation of the exhibition in Bucharest in the second half of June 2007. The opening was also the launch event for the catalogue and for the awarding of the prizes that were announced by members of the international jury. At the end of October 2007, the exhibition travelled to Cluj, Iasi and Timisoara.

HOW IS THE PROJECT FINANCED?

The project was funded by the European Union, through the Europe Phare Fund 2006.