(Cultural) Institutions in Semiperipheries

With contributions from Nora Dorogan & Nicoleta Esinencu (Teatru Spalatorie / Laundry Theater, Chișinău), Ioana Florea (independent researcher, Bucharest), Mick Wilson (HDK-Valand/CAPIm, Gothenburg), Maxim Polyakov (3rd Space, Chișinau), Cătălin Gheorghe (UNAGE/Vector, Iași), Vladimir Us (Oberliht Association, Chișinău), Rusanda Curcă & Elena Russu (Coalition of Independent Cultural Spaces, Chișinău)

PROGRAMME

Nora Dorogan & Nicoleta Esinencu, Choices. In the West, you say you're left-wing and in the East you say you're right-wing.

4 November 2025: 16:00 - 16:50

Are you between two low-paying jobs?
Between 10-hour workdays or night shifts?
Between blatant exploitation and exploitation with a human face?
You have to choose between selling your vote and having nothing to put on the table?
Instead, you chose between a refugee from Ukraine and one from Syria?
You chose between taxes for the rich and austerity for the poor?
You chose between the service in the national army and your child's education?
Between the European garden and the migrant jungle?

Did you choose capitalism?

Did you choose the market version of freedom? - freedom™
"You can be anything you want"?
It's up to you?
Choices?

Ioana Florea, Uneven territorial development, its relations and institutions

4 November 2025: 17:00 - 17:50

Uneven development does not only mean that some territories are less invested, less developed, with lower life quality than others. It also means long-term series of uneven trade and power relations, extracting profit from the less developed territories to the benefit of capitalists from the more developed territories. It also means intense labour exploitation and worse labour conditions. This presentation explores the institutions and relations that maintain uneven territorial development from the global to the local scale, how they came to be, and what is the role of culture in their frame.

Mick Wilson, How Thinking Institutes? Geopolitical inflections in the study of institutional and organisational imaginaries

4 November 2025: 18:00 - 18:50

This presentation will introduce current research at the intersection of organisational studies and institutional critique that proposes the construct of the imaginary as a useful resource with which to think about organisational change processes and art institutions. Based on work being done in collaboration with colleagues at HDK-Valand and in association with the Centre for Art and the Political Imaginary (capim.se), this presentation will both outline the broad conceptual framework of this research and indicate the preliminary work being done in constructing a set of case studies. The presentation will attempt to further consider how geopolitical perspectives inflect, or fail to inflect, discourses on institutional critique and organisational change.

Maxim Polyakov: The Case of 3rd Space Studio

5 November 2025: 15:30 - 16:00

The presentation will focus on the 3rd Space Studio. where samizdat - experimental low-run DIY publishing - became a means ofcommunication and collective organizer. How such shared studio practices lead from spontaneous forms of togetherness to needs of self-constitution and how it prevents institutional alienation.

Cătălin Gheorghe, The Turkish Bath Scam. Themchronicle of a death foretold

5 November 2025: 16:30 - 17:00

Twenty five years ago, a group of young artists and other progressive cultural dreamers imagined the possibility of an International Center for Contemporary Art, situated in the building of a historical Turkish Bath, in the peripherical city of Iași. It was just an idea that circulated along the twisted time until six years ago when the Municipality of Iași glimpsed the opportunity to renovate, convert and refunctionalize the Turkish Bath based on this utopic idea. The architects selected to write the application for raising the European funds were in the position to invite the group of internationalized dreamers to conceive the vision, mission, and programme of the future International Center for Contemporary Art. The group gathered under an informal Initiative Group of the Independent Cultural Sector in Iași. The application succeeded, and the Municipality contracted the builders to refunctionalize the Turkish Bath as a contemporary art space according to the group's ideas. During the construction works, the Mayor publicly announced that the space will be run by NGOs. After completion, the Mayor apparently changed his mind and, abusing his hegemony, determined the Local Council to give the space under the administration of an obscurantist public institution run by a political friend that rebranded 'contemporary art' as 'contemporary sacred art', ideologising the space as a conservatorist heaven. The Initiative Group reacted in vain and dissolved. The Turkish Bath was reconverted in an Orthodox place of collectedness.

Vladimir Us, Digital, printed and physical infrastructures for emerging artists and cultural workers in Moldova

5 November 2025: 17:00 - 17:30

Oberliht Association was founded by a group of students of the Art Academy in Chisinau in the year 2000, as a non-governmental, voluntary, non-profit society. Based on rather long working experience as an independent cultural actor it develops and maintains interdisciplinary platforms and projects aiming to connect the local and international contemporary art and culture initiatives, and advocates for a strong and independent cultural sector in Moldova and in the region. The presentation will focus shortly on several of its projects that served as digital, printed and physical infrastructures to emerging artists and cultural workers: [oberlist] mailing list (2005 - ongoing) an electronic free of charge service that is offered to artists and cultural workers from Moldova and internationally, the Postbox magazine (2009-2013) an interdisciplinary and experimental publication that aims to reflect the young artists' and writers' work and activity, the Flat Space (Apartamentul Deschis) a functional replica of a socialist apartment designed by Stefan Rusu and commissioned to represent the identity of Kiosk project, Kiosk AIR, an artist and curator in residency program (2009 - ongoing) that supports creation of new work in relation to local contexts and realities and offers the opportunity to explore various issues that relate to Moldova's situation in general and to analyse the processes that shape Chisinau's public space today and Re-Public of Culture Workers was a 3-week long art laboratory hosted by Casa Zemstvei (The House of Zemstvo) in Chisinau with a focus on the topic of self-organization, aiming to experiment with a societal model based on alternative culture infrastructures, to share co-living and co-creation experiences, and to foster resilience within the international culture community that was facing critical times: [link]

Rusanda Curcă & Elena Russu (Coaliția Sectorului Cultural Independent din Republica Moldova), Imagining Cultural Institutions of the Future

5 November 2025: 17:30 - 18:00

The Independent Cultural Sector Coalition (CSCI) of the Republic of Moldova emerged in 2021 as a response to the fragmentation and systemic neglect of the independent cultural scene. Formed as an advocacy and solidarity platform, CSCI seeks to institutionalize dialogue between the independent cultural political actors and public authorities. Our contribution will reflect on the Coalition's institutional evolution and its strategic advocacy for establishing a public-civic partnership (PCP) framework in Moldova—an innovative model aiming to democratize access to public infrastructure, foster co-governance of cultural spaces, and strengthen the autonomy and sustainability of the independent cultural sector.

Bios

Nora Dorogan is a cultural worker, lives and works in Chisinau. She studied Sociology at the University of Bucharest and completed a Master's in Cultural Policies and Cultural Management in the Balkans at the University of Arts in Belgrade. She is one of the initiators of the teatru-spălătorie collective where she continues to be active to this day. She is especially interested in subjects such as work under capitalism, the work of migrant women workers in Western Europe, social justice and intersectional feminism.

Nicoleta Esinencu is an author and director. She lives and works in Chisinau. She is one of the founders of teatru-spălătorie, a political theatre collective from Chisinau. She writes about traditional family, patriarchy and homophobia; the holocaust in Bessarabia; recent history and repressed memory; working conditions and precarity; power relations between east and west. Her most recent texts are staged at teatruspălătorie, Chisinau; Reactor de creație și experiment, Cluj; Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin, Theater Rampe, Stuttgart; Schauspielhaus Graz and published by “l'Arche”, Paris and “Idea”, Cluj.

teatru-spălătorie is a queer-feminist theatre collective that emerged in 2010 from the need to consistently create artistic productions that would critically reflect and bring into discussion the problems faced by contemporary Moldovan society and beyond. For 7 years, the spălătorie collective managed a space where it created and produced theatre plays, organized readings, public discussions with artists, video screenings; it invited artists in residence. Moreover, it was a place where feminist groups and the LGBTQI+ community held their discussions, workshops and parties. Since 2019, spălătorie produces andpresents its performances abroad. In its plays, it recurrently addresses subjects such as power relations between east and west, critique of patriarchy and the neoliberal-capitalist system. Among its most recent productions are: Requiem for Europe (2018), The Gospel According to Mary (2018), The Abolition of the Family (2019), Symphony of Progress (2022), Playing on Nerves. A Punk Dream (2023), Dirty Laundry. The TrashOpera (2025).

Ioana Florea is researching urban transformations in Eastern Europe and has a PhD in Sociology from the University of Bucharest (2012). She is co-author of the monograph "Contemporary Housing Struggles. A Structural Field of Contention Approach", with Agnes Gagyi and Kerstin Jacobsson (Palgrave, 2022) and coeditor of "Uneven Real Estate Development in Romania at the Intersection of Deindustrialization and Financialization", with Enikő Vincze and Manuel Aalbers (Routledge, 2024). Her recent contributions have been published in the Radical Housing Journal, Journal of Political Ecology, Critical Housing Analysis, Voluntas, Environmental Sociology, and European Urban and Regional Studies. She is associate researcher at Södertörn University and part of the Common Front for Housing Rights (Bucharest).

Mick Wilson is Professor of Art, Director of Doctoral Studies and Co-Director of the Centre for Art and Political Imaginary (CAPIm, 2024-2028), at HDK-Valand, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. He is author of the forthcoming The Curatorial Incitement to Discourse (Berlin: Floating Opera Press, 2025). Current collaborative research projects include Mapping the Political Imaginary (2025-2027); The Museum of the Commons (EACEA 2023-2027); and The Foutain: An art-technological-social drama (FORMAS 2020-2024). Recent edited volumes include: with Gerrie van Noord & Paul O'Neill (eds.) Kathrin Böhm: Art on the Scale of Life, Sternberg / MIT Press (2023); with Henk Slager (eds.) Expo-Facto: Into the Algorithm of Exhibition, EARN (2022), with Cătălin Gheorghe (eds.) Exhibitionary Acts of Political Imagination (Editura Artes/ArtMonitor, 2021); with Nick Aikens et al. (eds.) On the Question of Exhibition 1, 2, & 3 (PARSE, 2021) and with Paul O'Neill et al. (eds.) Curating After the Global (MIT, 2019).

Maksim Polyakov was born in Tiraspol. It was MSSR, and now is the capital of Pridnestrovie, an unrecognized republic de jure part of Moldova, but de facto not controlled by it. Maksim mainly operate between the left and right banks of the Dniester river or somewhere around. His current research focuses on methodologies for 'samizdat' (self–publishing), considering this practice primarily not in terms of object production, but as a platform to build and develop conversations, social situations, and communication spaces. Examples include grassroots publishing houses and distribution centers, open studios and temporary services such as pop-up cafes or libraries. Maksim is one of the organiser and since 2018 the coordinator of the 3rd Space Studio in Chisinau, a one-room workshop for various practices related to DIY Printed Matter. Located in Casa Zemstvei (also known as Muzeul Zemstvei or just Zemstva) Cultural Center. The studio exists in partnership with Oberliht Young Artists Association. In addition to publications, the studio produces various forms of collectivity. Over the course of its operation, this place became a key point for Kolxoz, Drujba, ISKRA RISO UNIT.

Cătălin Gheorghe is a theoretician, curator, editor, Professor of Curatorial Research and Praxis, and Director of Doctoral School of Visual Arts at “George Enescu” National University of the Arts in Iași (Romania). He is the editor of 'Vector – critical research in context' publication series [www.vector.org.ro], and curator of 'Vector – studio for art practices and debates', which is a platform for critical research and art production based on the understanding of art as experimental journalism.

Vladimir Us, artist and curator based in Chisinau, Moldova, founding member of Oberliht Young Artists Association (http://oberliht.org). He studied art, curating, cultural management and cultural policy in Chisinau, Grenoble and Belgrade. Beginning in 2000, under the umbrella of Oberliht Association, he initiated and is coordinating several cultural platforms in collaboration with artists, architects, curators, activists, researchers and cultural workers from across the region, among which [oberlist] mailing list (information gateway for arts and culture from Moldova): https://lists.idash.org/ cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/oberlist, Postbox Magazine – literature, art & attitude: https://plic09.wordpress.com, Kiosk AIR – artist-inresidence program: http://chiosc.oberliht.org/air,Zpace – independent arts & culture scene from Moldova: https://zpatiu.wordpress.com

Oberliht Association Founded in 2000 and based on rather long working experience as an independent cultural actor, Oberliht aims to interconnect dispersed artistic scenes and build an artistic community making use of public spaces. The Association aims to provide support to young artists and contribute to their professional development. It develops and maintains interdisciplinary platforms and projects aiming to connect the local and international contemporary art and culture initiatives, and advocates for a strong and independent cultural sector in Republic of Moldova and in the region.

Rusanda Alexandru is a community DJ, cultural, environmental, and civic activist based in the Hîrtop village, Cimișlia district. She is the directrice of the Center for Cultural Projects Arta Azi, an organization that promotes access to art and culture in rural areas and among marginalized groups. She is also the directrice of the Coalition of the Independent Cultural Sector in the Republic of Moldova, an umbrella organization that brings together representatives of the independent cultural scene. Rusanda is interested in the dynamics of cultural ecosystems, supporting participatory governance and the democratization of culture.

Elena Russu is a cultural manager and executive directrice of the Coalition of the Independent Cultural Sector in Moldova (CSCI). Her work focuses on developing participatory governance models, activating and managing cultural spaces, strengthening cultural rights, and promoting systemic change. With over ten years of experience in activism and the independent cultural sector, Elena coordinates projects at the intersection of art, civic participation, and institutional reform in the Republic of Moldova.