5. I was born an artist and I will die an artist. I can never think or behave like
other humans because I am different.
I search for the truth. I feel that the essence is in simplicity, in life itself. The
presence of the inner anxiety is the proof of the life. A human body is made of
flesh and blood but is fed with meat. The whole existence on Earth is a
permanent contradiction betwen good and bad, right and wrong. The mortals
have a fascination for buying many little things; they just forgot to buy their
own death.
Outside it´s raining. I am full of mud. I live in such an up side down Third
World! Just because of one and two came to life the three! Humans eat
animal meat but also other humans. There are more ways of eating a human
than an animal. This is the cruel truth about existence on Earth!
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6. ESSEL AWARD '09, Austria
Jury Statement
Constantly confronting two options, Violeta Ionita tries to make the right
decision as a youngster, based on personal beliefs and critical attitudes. Her
works emphasize the politics that accelerate the decline of the education
system in Romania.
The artist is situated ‘in between’, a space of duality, of connections linking
inside and outside, the opposition of superficiality and human essence.
Her works also follow this concept. Even though she uses two separate
techniques – video and video installations -- they can be seen as one, as a
whole.
The viewer’s perception of the artworks can differ, as between static images,
moving images and film.
The artist tries to define herself and to define personal identity as a social self,
in a continuous comparison with someone else. The double relation
(inside/outside, self/someone else) tears apart the certainty of reality.
“Antinomy’s ubiquity” even becomes the antithesis. The artist is convinced
that art has the ability to bring us closer to our own human essence, to give us
back our human condition. It is a salvation, a desalination process, part of a
mechanism in an institutionalized, dehumanized social context.
The jury appreciated most of all the freshness of these concepts, which might
otherwise be considered as verging on the banal.
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7. 2004 - 2008 G. Enescu University, Fine Arts Faculty, GRAPHICS,
PHOTOGRAPHY and VIDEO, Iaşi, RO
1998 - 2003 Gheorghe Tattarescu, Fine Arts High School, Focşani
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8. Work 1: UNTOLD
Year: 2010
Technique: Video
Size: 15’
Apparently common daily life sequences are interrupted by life drama;
The silence is broken by a sudden death, by a scream or by an existential
crisis. UNTOLD reveals the aridity of the human’s inside, suffocated
personalities and unfulfilled dreams.
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11. To dare to dream it hurts of death but, to live without dreaming is dying.
One needs to give his best for his dreams because dreams are forever but a
body is just for a life.
11
12. Work 2: HUMAN FLIGHT
Year: 2010
Technique: Video
Size: 3’
People that achieve their dreams, fly. The human’s flight is a slowly
blow, a transparent touch, a light movement in spiral. Achieving dreams
is making peace with you. Human Flight has been selected to the final 10
at SELFPORTRAIT category at THEONEMINUTES BELGIANOPEN Film
Festival.
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13. Work 3: IN BETWEEN
Year: 2010
Technique: Video
Size: 5’ 07”
It’s about creation. Soft movements describe the space between highness and
Earth. In creation lab people can multiply and reach to know their multiple
personalities. The film describes the floating state: you are not on Earth but still
not in the sky.
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14. Work 4: THE DREAM
Year: 2010
Technique: Video
Size: 5’ 06”
When one reaches a high level of spirituality he is talking in his dreams and he
wakes up reviewing them. Our morning dreams are the result of our mind
evolution. Some times sleeping dreams leave the imaginary world and continue
into reality.
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19. Work 5: Terminus
Year: 2008
Technique: Video
Size: 5’ 06”
I am talking about alienation and individualism. During the film I present a symbolic run of
industrialization, mechanization and superficiality to avoid a life as a print. I try to show two possibilities:
accepting to be a “canned food human” or running for a better life for keeping the spirituality and
essence alive. The film obtained SECOND PRIZE ESSEL AWARD ’09.
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20. Work 6: 15 minutes of confusion
Year: 2008
Technique: Video
Size: 11’
It’s about the deterioration of the educational system in Romania and politics that
encourages this phenomenon. The youth has two options: the easy way, that is
corrupted and superficial, or the hard way that makes the youth to reach the
professionalism and the essence of the life.
Work 3: “Canned food humans”
Year: 2008
Technique: installation
Size: 30 pineapple canned food boxes
This is my photographic project for graduation exam. This is the story of the
human being that was transformed into canned food by the System. The project
also talks about human’s alienation. I took pictures of some people while they
were holding in their hands placards with true jail numbers, with the written
words “alienated” and “individualist” and instead of American states I wrote my
country initials, RO. I stuck these photographs on real empty canned food boxes
to show, in a metaphorical way, what people reached to be thanks to a wrong
and cold system.
The film emphasizes in a cynical mood the nowadays youth confusion. I believe
criticism helps improvement. The film obtained SECOND PRIZE ESSEL AWARD ’09.
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22. Work 7: “Canned food humans”
Year: 2008
Technique: installation
Size: 30 pineapple canned food boxes
This is my photographic project for graduation exam. This is the story of the
human being that was transformed into canned food by the System. The project
talks about human’s alienation too.
I took pictures of some people while they were holding in their hands placards
with true jail numbers, with the written words “alienated” and “individualist” and
instead of American states I wrote my country initials, RO. I stuck these
photographs on real empty canned food boxes to show, in a metaphorical way,
what people reached to be thanks to a wrong and cold system.
22
23. Which is the canned food and who is the human?
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25. Work 8: I and Thou
Year: 2008
Technique: Installation and Video
Video Size: 6’ 44”
This is a remake of the project “Relation in space” signed by Marina
Abramovic and Ulay. I inspired from Martin Buber’s book, “I and Thou”,
adapting all to my personal relation.
There is about two screens that are talking to each other. They symbolize
the woman and the man: the blue lips represent the man and the red lips
represent the woman. They have a philosophical conversation about their
relation. Here both characters have my voice to emphasize that I feel
alone in my love relation.
The story starts from Marina and Ulay's relation and reaches to my own
relation. With the installation material I also made a short-film having
the length of 6 minutes and 44 seconds.
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28. Work 9: Traveler
Year: 2008
Technique: video
Size: 3’ 32’’
This short film was ehxibited at Chisinau as a result of the
workshop RO-MD/Moldova in two scenarios in Republic of Moldavia.
In my project I chose to talk about the similarities between Romania and
Republic of Moldavia. In both countries many people work abroad, the youth
started to get a “deleted memory” life using the computer as brain, like this
deleting their own national history, past and culture. Here it’s about the huge
desire to travel and discover new cultures. The question is: are these men wise
enough to control their life journey? Will they remember their origin, their past?
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29. Work 10: Message
Year: 2007/ 2009
Technique: Video and Installation
Size: 11’ 51”
Message - Installation 2009
The film was exhibited in 2007 at opening day screening at FILOFEST FILM
FESTIVAL, SLOVENIA;
2008 in the exhibition “Hate&Love”/ gallery L5, P.Cuypersstraat 1,Hoek Stedelijk
Museum, 6041 Roermond (the Netherlands);
2009, ESSEL ART AWARD CEE 09, Essel Museum, Klosterneuburg, AU
Message is a film that criticizes the loss of hope of real love and its purity. In
this film I share my own experience in love. I try to convince the audience about
the importance of the deepness of the feelings that we share with other people
especially, those between a man and a woman. The main role of any society is to
lead humanity to the real values and feelings. The film obtained SECOND PRIZE
ESSEL AWARD ’09.
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33. Work 11: Unpack your package and see who you are!
Year: 2007
Technique: Video
Size: 6’ 13”
This is a short film that I did while I had my Erasmus scholarship in Belgium. In
this project I used my own body expressiveness to transmit the pleasure of
feeling good in my own skin. Enjoying so much, the work on this film and feeling
so light moving like a ballet dancer, made me discover my true passion: doing
artistic short-films. I wanted to convince the people how great it feels to be you!
At that time I also was seriously thinking of the power that is given by an open
and free mind. The title, “Unpack your package and see who you are”, refers to
open the soul, to have a look inside and discover what a person really is; his true
nature, talents, needs and dreams. It’s also about playing and childhood.
The film was displayed at “Be Abroad” exhibition, in Belgium.
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35. Work 12: Unpack your package and see who you are!
Year: 2007
Technique: silkscreen prints
Size: A2, A1, A2
I displayed these silkscreen prints at the final foreign student’s exhibition, “Be
Abroad”, in Belgium. These works completed my principal project named, Diary.
It was for the first time when I tried this print technique and it was a special
experience.
Silkscreen print “Looking for myself!”
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42. Work 13: Dare to be alive!
Year: 2007
Technique: video
Size: 11’ 16’’
This project is a revelation. I realized that I am just a robot for any society! I exit
the dreams world to confront reality. I ask: who built this world, the aliens?
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44. Work 10: Diary
Year: 2007
Technique: collage on newspapers
Size: 70m
I used newspapers that I colored in black to transform them into package paper.
I also used the special sticking paper as drawing line that helped me to create
forms like any other pencil. I drew 70 meters of newspapers, enough to wrap a
whole room that supposed to be my diary.
Diary, collage
A diary is a private space where deep thoughts, life conclusions and self pictures
produce the reverse of the memory.
Diary, collage
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45. I drew on photos and newspapers. In my “diary” I wrote in a direct and cynical
way about my emotions. That was the point: to take a snap of my mentality in
that stage. It was an explosion of so many feelings!
Diary, collage
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48. Work 11: Diary
Year: 2007
Technique: photography
Size: A4
This is a series of self-portraits photographs. I stuck them on newspapers for
Diary project. I drew with pastels on them. The pictures express different
personal states that I surprised in my try to discover my self.
Diary, photography
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52. Work 12: Alienation
Year: 2007
Technique: video
Size: 1’ 43’’
This film is the result of my participation at the workshop coordinated by artist Delia Keller.
The film was dispalyed in the faculty gallery. Here it's about the people that don't identify with
society they live in. These people are called antisocials and generally they isolate, soemtimes
losing their minds.
Alienation, video still images
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