Mona Vatamanu & Florin Tudor

The Spread of Time

2020,
Textiles, installation

The Spread of Time was originally conceived as an intervention that enters into a sensitive dialogue with an architectural landmark in central Bucharest – Omnia Hall (built in 1967 under Nicolae Ceaușescu) whose space and multiple temporalities are explored in the work. The building’s architectural transformation started soon after the fall of socialism: for some time, Omnia Hall served as the seat of the new democratic Senate, which relocated to another location in 2004, leaving the site abandoned for more than a decade. During their investigations, the artists found a layer of textile material between the walls’ brick-and-concrete structure and the wood paneling visible inside the room – pieces of white velvet that covered the entire structure invisibly. During the building’s lifetime, this membrane became a substrate that recorded, without any human intent, images, traces etc., which are made visible again in The Spread of Time. The textile materials carry an imprint of history, outlined in the nothingness of dust. The extent of the space, the distance between here and there, between then and now, Omnia Hall’s fifty-year existence are compressed into a few millimeters of material, revealing an image of the world of things inscribed into the indifference of nature.

Pungi de faina [Flour Bags]

2023,
Installation