Big as a house
Persona & Place
Șona Artist in Residence
In the Spring of 2024, a part of Super:Serios collective (Maria Mandea and George Marian Preduț) were invited to the Șona Artist in Residence (AIR) program to work on the Micul Haos project.
This residency served as a critical research opportunity to explore a core thesis of our work: How do intimate, crafted characters decode the narratives of the built environment?
A time of exploration and a space for meaning
In the first days upon arrival be brought the character Țăranul (the Peasant) to explore the space with us.
A play on scale
During our stay we kept questioning scale. Why do we create these miniature people. How do they impact those around. How do they make us perceive space differently?
The man in the picture above invited us in his house (the oldest in the village) because he was curious about the character we were photographing on the street.
A space in time
Șona is a small village in Brașov, Romania.
This village is the home of Șona AIR (Artists in Residence), a program dedicated to artists whose work is rooted in research and long-term inquiry.
Our 2 months here in 2024 allowed us to immerse ourselves in this quietude, using the village as a laboratory for our mediator-characters and a site for interdisciplinary experimentation.
Șona AIR is organized by the Ștefan Câlția Foundation and Galeria Posibilă. We want to send a special thanks to Monica, who invited us to be part of this experience, and to everyone who made us feel so welcomed and at home during our stay.
Time flows, flies & forms.
The Rural & the Urban
During our residency we met fellow artist in residence Sorina Vazelina <3 and together we devised a participative artwork, a human as big as the house we were stying in.
Together with about 20 children from Șona and nearby we created a fully articulated character and hanged it on the house, with the attic window as its head. Them we animated it (with the help of the wind).
Human scale, dream scale
Big as a House / Om cât casa
Concept created together with Sorina Vazelina
We left something (or someone) behind
As our stay in Șona was approaching an end, we created Ștefan, a character that remained in the village together with the people there from Șona Noastră. He was inspired by Ștefan Vaida from Ambulanța pentru Monumente as they are actively restoring houses in the area.
