Eforie Colorat announces the start of renovation works on the former projection booth and ticket office of the largest open-air cinema on the Black Sea. Transformed into cultural spaces, the two rooms will host the Eforie Colorat 1 Metru Pătrat de Artă program, bringing together a series of events that await their audience in the off-season, throughout the year.
The new multifunctional spaces – which will remain open from July 2023 to June 2024 – will be launched on Saturday 15 July at 19:00 with a conference attended by representatives of Europa Nostra, a pan-European federation representing citizens’ organizations working to protect Europe’s cultural and natural heritage. The conference will be followed by the unveiling of the installation “Inflatable Concrete” – an in situ
work that Mircea Modreanu designed especially for the seaside community.
Developed in partnership with European cultural institutes, diplomatic missions and international film festivals, Eforie Colorat proposes daily, during the two months of summer, films, concerts, debates, openings, workshops or greening actions, events designed to erase the barriers between artists and crowds and the boundaries between conventional exhibition spaces and public space.
Eforie Colorat 1 Metru Pătrat de Artă adds 12 European films to the programme – provided by KineDok Romania and the French Institute, along with other cultural events ranging from workshops, exhibitions and debates to concerts and poetry evenings. The series will continue
into the off-season, with a series of events designed to turn the Cinemascop Summer Garden into a permanent cultural center of Eforie Sud. According to a year-long programme, the center will host film screenings, debates with artists such as Reka and Darie Dup, Lia and Dan Perjovschi, Mugur Grosu and Lumi Mihai, or contemporary art installations, including One minute older, a project by Fundața 9, coordinated by Suzana Dan.
Access to the events included in this program is free. More information about the festival will be published on the event’s website as well as on the associated official pages.
The seaside summer gardens are still telling their stories from more than 50 years of glory. The largest open-air cinema in the Black Sea resorts’ suite, with the largest projection screen, the Cinemascop garden in Eforie Sud was inaugurated in 1958 and remained open until 2004, when
it was abandoned and then completely forgotten. It retained its identity until its final years, hosting uninterrupted outdoor film screenings. One day the projector was switched off in the Cinemascop, as were the spotlights, and for years the garden fell silent. Free to reclaim its rights,
nature then invaded a forgotten territory, making its way through the concrete slabs with blades of grass or tree shoots. The famous projection screen has, in time, become lost among the leaves and the chairs and props have perished, devoured by curries or mould. The Cinemascop garden has become a ruin in the 15 years since no one has found any possible use for it.
Later, a team of young people removed tons of waste from the deserted summer garden and then screened the first films to restore the center’s former identity. The initiative began with the launch of the “Cinemascop Festival”, a project initiated by Emil Cristian Ghiță and organized by Czech Center, together with Eforie Town Hall and Radef Romania Film. Subsequently, new cultural service opportunities for the public were created, as well as a new platform for exposure for emerging and established artists alike. The Eforie Colorat Festival has transformed the
Cinemascop Garden into an alternative meeting space at the Black Sea and, at the same time, into the first center dedicated to contemporary arts on the Romanian coast. After several stages of sanitation, this year the organizers announced the first renovations and the transformation of the rehabilitated rooms into a community cultural center. A meeting point that will remain open throughout the year.
“Eforie Colorat 1 Metru Pătrat de Artă is a step forward towards the general objectives we set ourselves three years ago, namely the strengthening of the local cultural ecosystem and the development of an artistic infrastructure in an area with a deficit. We aim to bridge the cultural access gap specific to small town communities and to engage people in educational endeavors, knowing that they increase group cohesion and a sense of collective well-being. We have found solutions for the rehabilitation of symbolic spaces, important rooms in the Cinemascop Garden, such as the projection booth and the former ticket office. We are converting these once strictly utilitarian areas into cultural spaces and will keep them open throughout the year, with programming that we consider relevant. One of the rooms will become an art gallery and the other will be a permanent meeting center, suitable for the winter months. The Carmen Sylva High School will also join us in this endeavor, hosting a succession of events designed to develop young people’s creativity and strengthen their relationship with art. At the same time, we support and promote environmental responsibility, community involvement in environmental activities or the strengthening of community values such as inclusion, diversity and tolerance. All promoted and educated through artistic means,” said Alexandra Dumitrescu and Emil Cristian Ghiță, Forumul Artelor Vizuale NGO, initiators of this programme.
An installation designed by Mircea Modreanu for the community of Eforie Sud
“Through its satellite – E T A J on Wheels, the Bucharest-based gallery E T A J artist-run Space moves, during the summer, to the summer garden in Eforie Sud with “Inflatable Concrete” – an in situ installation that Mircea Modreanu designed especially for the seaside community. Ironically titled “Memorialul Saltelei”, Mircea Modreanu’s exhibition contains a mixture of unpublished personal memories, to which are added fragments imprinted in the collective memory – materialized ad hoc in a series of works on concrete support, of various sizes.
The installation signals physical pollution, generated by the over-consumption of plastics used in the manufacture of cokes, mattresses, fins, jackets, duckies and countless other inflatable bodies (useful for relaxation and entertainment, but harmful to humans and the environment). On the other hand, it draws attention to the visual pollution: the seaside landscape turns into a ridiculous parade of garish elements, both chromatically and formally. The exhibition sends us back in time, inviting the viewer to reconnect with the magical world in which the inner child can once again enjoy the innocence of moments spent on the seaside, scribbling in the sand, seeking happiness in spindle-shaped shells that (whisper) the secrets of life. The seemingly naive drawings are transpositions of his interest in memory and childhood, in a kind of artwork that seems to be discovered on the beach, accompanied by children’s laughter and the sound of the waves. The figures are made by the children themselves, adjusted in size for each individual work, then harmonized in soft colors,” said in her turn Călina Coman, curator.
“Etaj on Wheels has been, beyond the “big cities” (Bucharest, Cluj, Iasi) and in small towns such as Răcari where we organized the Exploring – Art & Nature project at the Ghica estate, as part of the Rendez-Vous Aux Jardins program, and yes, in Eforie for the last three years, since 2020, thanks to Eforie Colorat. The initiative to bring the public closer to contemporary art – by locating the gallery in the Cinemascop garden – is an approach that can serve as a model of good practice in areas with limited access to cultural and artistic events. I don’t think I’m wrong when I say that a relationship between the local community and events of this kind that take place there has gradually taken shape,” stated Mircea Modreanu, artist, curator and gallerist.
The eco-art project Eforie Colorat proposes more than 200 cultural events, hosted throughout the summer (3 July – 10 September) by the creative hub Grădina de Vara in Eforie Sud. 1 Metru Pătrat de Artă enriches the summer offer with 12 more films, European productions on community themes, which will be followed by debates moderated by various categories of experts, artists or opinion leaders in relevant fields. Under a year-long programme, until June 2024, the center will host creative workshops, reading groups, meetings with artists such as Reka
and Darie Dup, Lia and Dan Perjovschi, Mugur Grosu and Lumi Mihai. It will also be the initiator of actions to green or to get to know the local ecosystem. The events in this series aim to promote European culture, inclusion, diversity and tolerance through the development of social,
civic and intercultural skills, critical thinking and media literacy.
MULTIANNUAL PROGRAMME 1 Metru Pătrat de Artă
The Eforie Colorat 1 Metru Pătrat de Artă cultural center will operate throughout the year in
Eforie Sud. According to the initial programming, the main highlights from June 2023 to June
2024 are:
● Artist Talks | Artistic Interventions | Guests: Reka Dup, Darie Dup, Lia Perjovschi, Dan
Perjovschi, Alina Chiciudean, Mugur Grosu, Lumi Mihai, Suzana Dan, Raluca Paraschiv,
Iuliana Dumitru, Ana Maria Stroie, among others.
● Musical and ecological performances
● Openings and exhibitions of contemporary art | New 1 Metru Pătrat de Artă
Gallery
● European film screenings promoting inclusion, diversity and tolerance
● Theater performances
● Eco-installations | “Punga cu pungi”, as part of the 1 Minute Older campaign
● Creative workshops in pottery, autoethnography, photo, video or printmaking.