1989
photography
Shoot on location in present Romania, 1989 documents the first generation born after the fall of the Communism in the Eastern Bloc. Born between 1989 and 1999, the youth pictured in the book had grown up witnessing the clash between two fundamentally different systems: communism and capitalism. The totalitarian past had left deep marks on the Romanian identity and landscape, and the sudden switch to democracy that happen in the early 90s further shaped the country’s ideologies and image.
The strong sense of Soviet nostalgia is present throughout the project: seen in the colour palette, with the repetitive uses of red; in the archival photographs showing military personnel; or in the communist relics such as the deteriorated statue of two coal miners or an abandoned block of flats, factories and the crane: the symbol of the Bucharest of the 60s and the dictator Nicolae Ceausescu’s colossal plan to rebuild the capital in concrete. 1989 revisits such different places of interest, established important by the communist agenda: from the industrial to economical, housing to military, sports to leisure - the book depicts sports halls and hotels, power plants and apartment buildings, looking for the change while keeping an eye on the past.
this project was exhibited in 2016 in Capitol Centre, Cardiff, UK and in 2019 in The Museum of Socialist Art, Sofia, BG.