The Reclaimed Anthology of Flowers brings together six artists: Carina Burghelea, Maria Chirilă, Mălina Moncea, Cristina Ostafi, Ioana Rusu, and Claudia Nicola Ungureanu, united by the desire to reconfigure the ways in which female presence is perceived, embodied, and integrated within the exhibition space. Under the curatorial guidance of Mălina Moncea and Cristina Ostafi, the project initiates a process of reflection on how institutions, curatorial discourses, and historical frameworks have sought to define and constrain women’s artistic experiences. Situated within a context in which female artists have repeatedly been positioned under the male gaze, their subjects and relevance dictated accordingly, the collective interventions of this exhibition articulate a counter-narrative: a gesture of reclamation and reappropriation of the exhibition space.
The exhibition is built around the concept of a transformed space: tranzit.ro/ Iasi becomes not merely a site for exhibiting works, but a territory undergoing radical reconfiguration. Each installation contributes to reshaping the space, making visible the tension between imposed invisibility and the imperative of asserting oneself. The artists engage with a multitude of mediums, methods, and themes without diluting the message, lending it consistency and highlighting the various ways in which female embodiment and experience can be articulated within contemporary artistic discourse.
At the core of the initiative lies an explicit critique of the mechanisms that have historically dictated the emergence and recognition of women artists. The exhibition does not seek to present a glorified image of this history, but to capture fragments of reality, tensions, contradictions, and diverse ways of relating to one’s social and political context. In this sense, the works simultaneously function as individual expressions within a collective framework, offering visitors an open space for reflection and confrontation with their own perceptions.
The Reclaimed Anthology of Flowers interrogates the ways in which dominant discourses attempt to reduce female experience to a decorative or secondary role, or merely to a token of inclusion and diversity. Accordingly, it asserts a necessary, firm, and monumental presence within the art space, one that is both visible and impossible to ignore.
Through the artists’ collaborative efforts and the energy of their shared engagement, the exhibition situates itself at the intersection of artistic gesture and taking a stance. It speaks to solidarity, the importance of reclaiming a deserved space, and the possibility of constructing new forms of presence and visibility. In this way, The Reclaimed Anthology of Flowers becomes not merely an exhibition, but a document of a collective attitude, representing a generation that refuses to accept the marginalization or reinterpretation of its own voices.
The tranzit.ro/ Iasi space, transformed by these interventions, is no longer an exhibition space but a medium in its own right for reconfiguration, negotiation, and reinterpretation. The space functions as an organism, communicating and identifying itself through the exhibited works, in which female experience is not only visible but irrefutable. In this sense, the exhibition proposes both a form of resistance and, simultaneously, a process of reconstruction, marking a crucial step in understanding the relationship between body, art, and society.
I participated with my latest work in this exhibition, "Acts of care dissolve my skin"