January 28 – February 4, 2 – 8 p.m
A project carried out by the Museum of Abandonment in collaboration with Cartierul Creativ, with the support of the SERA Romania Foundation, CARE France and FONPC
What is the Suitcases of Abandonment project?
The Suitcases of Abandonment is a communication and emotional mediation project initiated by the Museum of Abandonment in May 2022. Since then, almost 100 testimonies have been collected that talk about the most dramatic moments in an existence, the ones where external and uncontrollable forces take you in the situation of abandoning everything: your friends, your house, the place where you live or work, the community, the little habits, the existence as you know it… and to put in a hurry, in a suitacses, whatever you seem to be able to save. The project aimed to archive the histories and emotions of one of the most dramatic events in recent European history – the conflict in Ukraine.
How were the stories collected?
The Museum of Abandonment team initiated meetings with those for whom Romania was temporarily becoming a place of refuge as early as May 2022. The first working group was with a group of children who had fled an orphanage near Odessa, from the war and drone attacks. The first stories entitled the Suitcases of Abandonment were exactly theirs, about the small objects saved in their suitcases, which reminded them of “home”: a key ring, the T-shirt of the older brother who fought in the war, a sewing machine, some notebooks. It seemed to us that they were the essence, the link between the Museum of Abandonment – a project about the drama of Romania’s abandoned children and the Suitcases of Abandonment – a project about fleeing from the path of war, about what you leave behind and what you choose to take with you when your life is in danger.
But this project did not only approach the dramas of the Ukrainians, but also the history of the Romanians, who, not nowadays, but still recently, were in the position to pack their suitcases of abandonment and leave for nowhere.
Simina Bădică, historian, curatorial consultant, co-founder of the Museum of Abandonment, explains why the Suitcases of Abandonment is not only a project about Ukraine, but also about Romania.
“Each family has a story of some suitcases packed in a hurry, in a few hours, with impossible choices and selections. Whether it was called POPULATION EXCHANGE / TRANSFER (what happened in Quadrilater and Dobrogea starting with 1913), DEPORTATION (Jews and Roma people deported by the Romanian State in the Second World War, Banatians deported to Bărăgan in the 1950s, ethnic Germans deported in Siberia), REFUGE (from Bessarabia, Bucovina or Northern Transylvania ceded in 1940, from the Red Army in 1944), ARREST (imminent for those considered enemies of the communist regime in Romania), ESCAPE from socialist Romania (the so-called “frontierists” killed by the Romanian State or, on the contrary, ethnic Germans or Jews sold by the same State). Each family history has its “refugees”, its stories, objects that reached to us because someone decided that that object no longer fits in a SUITCASE OF ABANDONMENT. These are objects that have saved lives. Things that fit in a suitcase.” (Simina Badica)
What will you find in the exhibition?
“My land” was a component activity of the Suitcases of Abandonment, a creative exploration through techniques and methods inspired by expressive therapy, under the coordination of Mihaela Olimpia Ruscior and Raluca Minoiu. Within the project, 11 women from the Ukrainian refugee community created painted panels that describe their personal realms, maps of their own body, not only physically, but also mentally and emotionally. These mappings of thoughts, feelings and histories were made by the 11 women about the experience of war and the dramatic changes it brought to their lives. Their exercise in expressing and redefining new personal boundaries was achieved by putting together sounds, movements, colors, textures and words.
Their experience was complemented by a related point of view through the photographic lens of Alexandra Corcode, a student at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, where she is completing her BA in documentary photography.
The project signed by Alexandra is entitled: Light Unveiled – Lumina Dezvăluita. “Following the conflict, where the echoes of the war are still felt, the photographic project embarks on a sincere journey to illuminate the lives of Ukrainian women who sought refuge in the heart of Bucharest, escaping the harsh impact of the war’s devastation. Focusing on the lives of Alla, Alyona and Yulia, the aim of the project is to discover what gives them a sense of belonging and peace. Through specific questions, each wrote how their connection with the family, the food and the places of Bucharest served as an anchor in their new lives. These photographs are windows to a realm where the physical boundaries of place are transcended, yet firmly anchored in the authentic backdrop of documentary reality.” – Alexandra Corcode
