With these installations that I've been working on since 2024, I won a scholarship offered by tranzit - a network of autonomous initiatives in contemporary art - with the support of ERSTE Foundation. I will take part in Internationale Sommerakademie Salzburg, where I will attend the installation course of artist Christian Kosmas Mayer, "Art With and Against the Garden" (20 July - 1 August).
Artefacts of Nature are installations that I have created with the help and direct involvement of several threatened plant species (Sequoiadendron giganteum, Araucaria heterophylla), which serve as a testament to the great diversity of plants. Harbingers of disaster, these artefacts can be perceived as time capsules, carrying the message that we can still save non-human species (and, implicitly, the human one) from extinction by recognizing their important role and offering them the respect they deserve.
In this project, I attempt to present a speculative view from a distant future in which ecosystems have broken down due to human intervention, causing the extinction of plant life. This project aims to raise our level of moral responsibility in our interactions with other natural bodies. The biodiversity we know in the present stands on shifting baselines: we cannot experience what nature was like even 50 years ago. Thus, we end up accepting an increasingly diminished biodiversity as normal instead of fighting for the species that are threatened with extinction. The fortified church in Gușterița becomes, during this exhibition, the Reliquary of the Artefacts of Nature.
The exhibition "Artefacts of Nature: Vibrant Reliquary" was opened on May 9, 2026, as part of an experiential event combining art, ecology and gardening initiated, with the support of the Evangelical Parish of Sibiu, by Substrate collective, a group of friends and volunteers of different professions. The event called ”Good Weed, Bad Weed” was a manifesto for slowing down and bringing responsible action into our interactions with non-humans, a call for more time spent in nature, an ecology of the mind and an appeal to solidarity in an increasingly polarized society.
May 9 was a rainy day, a fact which generated quick collaboration and closeness between people, so the result was a magical day spent at the fortified church in Gușterița. We started our day with some manual labour in the garden alongside the event participants and the Parish volunteers. We woke up our bodies and our minds in a garden invaded by snails.
After gardening and a well-deserved and delicious lunch, we gathered in the 13th century Lutheran church, where we were treated with a special concert prepared by the organists of the Evangelical Parish, Brita Falch-Leutert, Jürg Leutert and Heinz Girschweiler from Chur, Switzerland (who played the alphorn). Upon this ocassion, I officially opened the exhibition ”Artefacts of Nature: Vibrant Reliquary” and held a guided tour for the participants, during which I presented the artefacts exhibited in different places of the church, such as the altar and the sacristy.
The central piece of the exhibition is Artefact #8: Hydra of Nocrich, an installation of Gleditsia triacanthos peas in a glass jar, on which I projected a source of light that would create an oversized shadow.
In the left part of the altar, in a wall niche, I placed the first assemblage I've made in 2024, Artefact #9, Pinus nigra needles, paper, paper clip, measuring tape on sponge.
The exhibition also explores the limits between humans and non-humans and where the two worlds clash, so Artefact #5, my drawing of the mushroom Cantharellus ciabrius, is situated amongst humans, on the church bench, as an active participant in the lives of the parishers. The same goes for Artefact #2 Pinus pinaster, which I have positioned in the lateral pews. The way towards the altar leads to the discovery of Artefacts #3 and #4, installations with Pinus silvestris cones, that reference the use of plants as a source of food.
In the sacristy, I have laid out a table of artefacts and I have introduced Artefact #13, Araucaria heterophylla leaves and cones on sponge, a species of conifer that was contemporaneous with the dinosaurs and that survived the last mass extinction during the End Cretaceous period (65 million yrs ago), endemic to Norfolk island in the South Pacific and presently threatened with extinction (conservation status: Vulnerable).
Artefact #10: Cedrus deodara leaves and cones on cardboard and sponge; a species native to the Himalayas, whose name is derived from the Sanskrit term devadāru, which means "wood of the gods", a compound of deva "god" and dāru "wood and tree".
Artefact #11: Sequoiadendron giganteum leaves and cones on cardboard; Sequoiadendron giganteum is a threatened species (status: Endangered) from California, known as the tallest tree in the world.
Artefact #12: Shells, cuttlefish bone, crabs, rock from Moledo beach (Portugal).
Artist Bogdan Dumitrescu also contributed to this exhibition by creating a ghostly soundtrack out of a recording I made of birds outside my window. This track was a really nice fit that created an otherworldly atmosphere.
Within the same event, artists Alexandra Coroi and Bogdan Dumitrescu created several installations that were exhibited at the school in Gușterița.
"Walk so silently that the bottoms of your feet become ears gathers a series of graphic and affective-sensory works that investigate the different ways in which we may situate ourselves within nature and the environment. The installations explore the garden through observational, aesthetic and meditative approaches, as well as the language as limit and representation. Content becomes image and the image becomes content. Through repetition and chance, an organic harmony emerges, one seemingly born from chaos, rather than from repetitive, homogenized order."
After the openings of the exhibitions, I organised a charcoal drawing workshop based on the observations that the participants made in the garden in a previous workshop held by Alexandra and Bogdan. Thus, we have created a collective artwork, a participatory drawing with plants and textures from the garden and with texts referring to protecting the environment and the responsibilities that we should have towards nature. I have created the charcoal manually, before the event, by burning magnolia wood.
During the evening, there were other workshops and debates and a film screening. We can only hope that the project in Gușterița will be continued, either by the newly formed Substrate collective (Ciprian Ciocan, Iuliana Labo, Alexandra Coroi, Bogdan Dumitrescu, Sorina Tomulețiu, Andreea Tărnăuceanu, Magda Ienci), or by other interested actors. This event was funded with money from our own pockets and it involved a lot of work carried out by the volunteering members of Substrate, with the important support of the Evangelical Parish of Sibiu.
