TEAM
Iulia Stătică – Curator
Iulia Statica is an Assistant Professor (Lecturer) at the School of Architecture and Landscape at the University of Sheffield, UK. Between 2025-2026 she will be a Mellon Fellow in Democracy and Landscape at Dumbarton Oaks, a Harvard University institute in Washington, DC, working on a book project titled Eastern Landscapes of Care: Women, Heritage, and Nature in Socialist Bucharest. She previously held postdoctoral positions at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, and Cornell University. She obtained her PhD in architecture from La Sapienza University in Rome in 2016. Her research focuses on the legacies of socialist-built environments in Eastern Europe, particularly mass housing, and the gendered experiences of these spaces. She investigates experiences of domesticity, infrastructure, and feminized migration in the wider context of Cold War and imperial histories, and their influence on contemporary postsocialist practices. Statica uses documentary film in her research; her film My Socialist Home premiered in London in 2021. She is the author of Urban Phantasmagorias: Domesticity, Production, and the Politics of Modernity in Communist Bucharest (Routledge, 2024).
Tao DuFour – Co-Curator
Tao DuFour is an architect and Assistant Professor in the History and Theory of Architecture at the Department of Architecture at the University of Cambridge. During Fall 2025 he will be a Mellon Fellow in Democracy and Landscape at Dumbarton Oaks, a Harvard University institute in Washington, DC. Tao’s research investigates aspects related to lived spatial experience, intersubjective and intergenerational understandings of architecture, landscape, and territory. He recently completed a collaborative documentary film project with Natalie Melas and documentary filmmaker Kannan Arunasalam, titled Possible Landscapes, a two-year research project that investigates spatial experience in the Caribbean, with a focus on Trinidad and Tobago. Along with Melas and Arunasalam, he was awarded the 2023 SAH Film and Video Award by the Society of Architectural Historians for their previous short film, We Love We Self Up Here. Tao holds a PhD and Master’s in the History and Philosophy of Architecture from the University of Cambridge. Tao is the author of Husserl and Spatiality: A Phenomenological Ethnography of Space (Routledge, 2022), which won the Edward Goodwin Ballard Prize for Phenomenology. He is a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.
Adrian Câtu – DoP, Video & Sound Design
Adrian Câtu is a doctor in anthropology and a documentary filmmaker. His editorial projects have been published in National Geographic, The New York Times, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and The Guardian. In 2020, he debuted in cinematography with the film My Socialist Home, which premiered at the Romanian Cultural Institute in London that same year. He completed a PhD in cultural anthropology in 2021, exploring human-animal relationships in Burkina Faso. Throughout his career, he has held four solo exhibitions, hosted by the Palace of Parliament and Cărturești Bookstore. His photographs can be viewed on his personal website: http://adriancatu.com.
Ion Grigorescu – Guest Artist
Ion Grigorescu (b. 1945, Bucharest) is one of the most important figures in Romanian post war art, known for his experimental and politically charged work that spans painting, photography, film, performance, and conceptual art. Working largely in private or semi-clandestine settings during the Ceaușescu dictatorship, Grigorescu explored themes of identity, the body, spirituality, and the individual’s struggle with authority. His early self-portraits, performative actions, and photographic sequences documented the tension between public and private life, offering subtle critiques of surveillance, censorship, and ideological conformity. Beyond his performative and conceptual works, Grigorescu produced a compelling photographic record of socialist Bucharest, capturing the stark reality of urban life, domestic spaces, and the city’s ongoing transformation. Grigorescu’s contributions to contemporary art have been widely recognized in recent decades. In 2021, the National Museum of Contemporary Art (MNAC) in Bucharest organized a major retrospective of his work. His art is held in several prestigious international collections, including Tate Modern (London), the Museum of Modern Art (New York), Centre Pompidou (Paris), Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea (Turin), the Museum of Modern Art (Warsaw), and Moderna Galerija (Ljubljana), among others.
Olivia Nițiș – Curation consultant
Olivia Nițiș is a researcher at the “G. Oprescu” Institute of Art History of the Romanian Academy, coordinator of the Visual Arts and Architecture Department – Modern and Contemporary times, independent curator, art historian. She is the vice-president of Experimental Project Association, member of the International Association of Art Critics since 2009. She is interested in the different aspects of the gender discourse in the historiography of Romanian art and in Eastern Europe, with contributions related to artists and the representation of gender in modern and contemporary art, the relationship between art and politics, between art and science. She is the author, editor and co-editor of several contemporary art articles and publications. She is the author of the volume Istorii marginale ale artei feministe (Marginal Histories of Feminist Art), Vellant, Bucharest, 2014 and co-editor of a volume dedicated to the conceptual artist Decebal Scriba (Kettler, Germany 2017). She was co-curator (with Martina Munivrana) of the personal exhibition of the Croatian artist Sandra Sterle at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb (MSU) in 2023, and in 2024 the curator of the Romanian-Czech conceptual art project A Spring of Hope a Winter of Despair (Faber, Timisoara and Pragovka, Prague)
Ioana Gontea – Project Manager
Ioana Gontea is a multidisciplinary cultural manager and independent producer active in visual arts, theatre, and cultural education. Since 2024, she has been the festival manager of the Bucharest International Experimental Film Festival (BIEFF). In 2023, she worked within the European Capital of Culture – Timișoara 2023 as the Operational Manager of the Art Encounters Foundation. In 2019, after winning the Gabriela Tudor Cultural Management Scholarship, she co-founded FIR Cooperative, an NGO aimed at supporting the creative community of artists carrying out cross-disciplinary cultural projects with social, educational, and ecological impact.
Andreea Bara – Communications
Georgia Țidorescu – Production
SC Carolin SRL – Production
Ianula Darlaiane – Mediation
Valeriya Klets – Graphic Design
Valeriya is the Head Graphic Designer at the Italian company Optima Italia. She has a strong educational background, including a Ph.D. in Architecture from La Sapienza University, a master’s in Graphic Design from ISD, and a degree in Industrial Design from KazGASA.
Gracie Meek – Exhibition Design Assistant
Jessica Lee – Exhibition Design Assistant
Erbetta Web Communication – Website Development
It is a web and digital consulting agency that helps businesses enhance their online presence and attract new clients. The agency offers a range of services including website design and development, online advertising, social media management, and content marketing, all supported by personalized technical and strategic consulting.