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Third World Arist

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Romania

Third World Country

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In Between In - Out

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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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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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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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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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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.

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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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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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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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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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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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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.

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Which is the canned food and who is the human?

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“Canned food humans”

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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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The woman

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The man

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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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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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Message - Installation

Message – Installation, Essel Museum, Klosterneuburg, AU, 2009

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Message - Installation

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Message – Video Still Image

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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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Unpack your package and see who you are! - Video still image

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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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Silkscreen print - “Self Reflection”

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Silkscreen print - “The Window”

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Silkscreen print - “I dare”

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Silkscreen print - “New World”

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Silkscreen print “Self Reflection”

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Silkscreen print - “Self Reflection”

Silkscreen print- “New World”

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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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Silkscreen print “Hands in love”

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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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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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Diary, collage

Diary, collage

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Diary, collage

Diary, collage

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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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Diary, photography

Diary, photography

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Diary, photography

Diary, photography

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Diary, photography

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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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Alienation, video still images

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