Why is there such a pervasive drive among Moldovan citizens to abandon their homeland?

This question served as the primary catalyst for my analysis of the contemporary Moldovan condition.

While numerous economic, demographic, and political justifications exist, these factors are present in many nations.

However, not everywhere is the collective psyche so deeply permeated by the dream of permanent departure a flight from one’s origins with the intent of never returning.

During this project, I engaged in extensive dialogue with the residents of the village of Palanca, seeking to understand their individual trajectories while drawing parallels to my own internal preoccupations.

This was particularly resonant as it became one of my final artistic interventions in Moldova before my own departure for studies in Norway, followed by Armenia and Germany effectively marking the end of my life in my native country…

The project “…WHY?” culminated in a performative intervention within the public sphere: the fixed placement of a map of the Moldavian SSR at the village’s main crossroads.

This gesture transformed a historical document into a spatial provocation.

In the subsequent exhibition-based iteration of this research, I incorporated materials from a destroyed bridge. This element functioned as a potent allegory for the severance of intergenerational ties and the total dismantling of the foundational values that once constituted a unified national space and defined its future.

To complement this, I utilized photographic documentation of the residents’ hands of this village.

Furthermore, the project included a recorded interview with a representative of the younger generation. In this dialogue, the participant articulated the causal relationships of the issues at hand through the lens of her own lived experience, providing a comprehensive account of the internal dynamics of the environment where she was born and raised.

This was intended as a symbolic “cross-section” of an era, a deliberate attempt to fix a moment that is perpetually undergoing deconstruction by the minute, the day, the month, and ultimately, the years…

And yet, despite everything …WHY???

The project was implemented in the form of an interactive photo-sound installation with photo-documentary elements of a performative intervention in the public space of the village of Palanka.

2012

“Symbiosis”, within the framework of “TANDEM festival” Polanca (MD)