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Dublă Expunere

A project merging art and writing. Running until 2025, it brings together 10 female visual artists and 10 female writers.

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The project

Short stories inspired by contemporary art.

Each writer crafts a short story inspired by a contemporary artwork. The stories find their place in a hybrid catalogue that combines written and visual elements, and the project extends through podcast episodes and public events with the artists and writers, culminating in an exhibition.

Made possible with the support of BCR, Dublă Expunere explores the symbiotic relationship between art and writing, and how these mediums intersect and influence one another.

Roxana and Ștefania, hosts of the Dublă Expunere podcast

Podcast

22 episodes on Black Rhino Radio.

An introductory episode, one episode for each writer and artist, and a concluding summary, running until March 2025. Personal insights into how contemporary artwork influences storytelling, and vice versa.

Listen on Black Rhino Radio
Poet Anastasia Gavrilovici on a park bench

The project's history

Dublă Expunere launched in 2014 as a creative platform uniting ten Romanian writers and ten contemporary artists. The collaboration resulted in a distinctive hybrid book, blending visual elements with short stories inspired by the contributed artworks.

As the project progressed, it evolved beyond its editorial focus into a series of public gatherings where writers and visual artists explored the interplay between visual and written language.

The first edition featured only two female creators in the catalogue. The second edition takes on a renewed mission and spotlights only female writers and artists.

Artist

Beatrice Arzoiu

Beatrice Arzoiu does not hesitate to explore significant things like death, life, or spirituality. She brings them into discussion with an almost unnatural clarity, as if describing a painting she made a few lives ago. The matters she approaches with passion are found in her art, in small but intense doses.

Drawing by Beatrice Arzoiu: a figure lying on a green rug, with the words "Aici a fost o inimă"

Artist

Victoria Zidaru

One of the most powerful artists in Romania. A discreet presence, Victoria builds her feminine, mystical, and traditional Romanian style from natural elements: dead leaves, straw, hemp, and woven or linen fabrics.

Textile work by Victoria Zidaru: stitched linen with a pocket holding dried plants

Artist

Ecaterina Vrana

Her thick-layered paintings dealt with a very personal universe, virtually a "petite histoire" of the artist's own existence. Her motifs often repeat and are reworked across paintings, almost like a dream-like repertoire. Courtesy of the family, with thanks for carrying on the artist's legacy.

Painting by Ecaterina Vrana: two figures on a textured orange ground with green birds

Artist

Lea Rasovszky

Lea Rasovszky's art can be read as a reflection on the seemingly endless births, metamorphoses, deaths, and resurrections of pop culture, "the sole myth system that unites us all", as Leslie Fiedler once said.

Installation by Lea Rasovszky: "How can you think of fame or death while standing in a field of flowers"

Artist

Ileana Pașcalău

She examines the role of artists and doctors in the cultural transition from the one-sex to the two-sex anatomical model, the impact of the "discovery" of women's sexuality, and non-binary narratives in the Early Modern Age.

Sculpture by Ileana Pașcalău: a dark organic form on pink foam

Artist

Norica Popescu

She studied painting at the National University of Arts in Bucharest. For her, painting is a divine grace granted to man: through it the invisible becomes visible, the past is displaced into the present and future, and oblivion turns into eternal memory, overcoming time and defeating death.

Painting by Norica Popescu: a woman standing in a doorway

Writers

  • Ana Maria Sandu

    A graduate of the Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest, and a member of the "Letters" Cenacle led by Mircea Cărtărescu. She has written for Dilema, Vineri, Observator cultural, Re: Publik, aLtitudini, and Cosmopolitan, and is the editor of Dilema veche.

  • Anastasia Gavrilovici

    A graduate of the Faculty of Letters, University of Bucharest, with a master's degree from the Center of Excellence in Image Studies. Her first poetry collection, The Industry of Comforting Adults (Max Blecher, 2019), won major literary prizes, including the Mihai Eminescu National Poetry Award.

  • Livia Ștefan

    Born in 1982, an immigrant in Bucharest. She debuted in 2012 with re.volver, and her poems and stories appear in various publications. She also writes theatre, takes photographs, and is the backup punk player at Oedip Piaf.

  • Moni Stanila

    Her poems have been translated into German, English, French, Swedish, Russian, Azerbaijani, Catalan, Turkish, Hungarian, and more. She appears in many anthologies in Romania and abroad and is considered among the most representative contemporary poets.

Writers and artists pairing

Announced writer and artist duos. Each writer selects an artist and a piece that resonates with them, for a personal and unique interpretation.

Co-funded by the Administration of the National Cultural Fund (AFCN)

The project does not necessarily represent the position of the Administration of the National Cultural Fund. AFCN is not responsible for the content of the project or for how the project results may be used. These are entirely the responsibility of the funding recipient.

Podcast

Episodes