On transdisciplinary collections – the need and dangers of narrative

The second public debate at Contemporar is organized by Aluvial and is closely linked to their exhibition.

Ultimately, and not surprisingly at all, it seems that even in an “inoffensive” field like culture, things are quite similar to history—where winners and losers are not determined solely on the battlefield, and great victories end up being largely based on how the narrative of events is constructed, meaning on the control of the narrative itself.

The (global) society we live in, with all its upheavals, stands as proof—surely, no one doubts this anymore.

The issue of how narratives are constructed to convey facts becomes increasingly pressing as discourse takes on ever more varied forms, making it harder for potential critics of the so-called official versions to follow, evaluate, and challenge them.

Even though we operate in a domain wrapped in nebulousness, abstraction, and fiction—one with an inherently ambiguous role, constantly transforming and redefining itself—the issue remains just as serious here.

After all, we should not underestimate the power of cultural acts, especially in the context of narrative contamination and blending across various spheres of society.

And in fact, we always return to history: the issue of identity—and therefore of belonging, and therefore of (political?) consent—is largely tied to matters of cultural identification, religious, ethnic, and linguistic belonging, and so on.

With all this in mind, we begin a conversation about the dangers that lurk when we throw ourselves (blindly) into narrative construction. Together—artists, a curator-historian, and a writer—we will attempt to identify these dangers and assess to what extent we can still invest ourselves in the role of the narrator.

Or whether art can continue to function in this way—as a (subjective) reflection of objective reality—through reflection, as a testing ground, a means of evaluation, a space for questioning narratives emerging from politics, history, and the social sphere.

Do we end up acting more responsibly in the realm of fiction than those who wield power with immediate consequences?

Speakers

Székely Sebestyén, art historian/curator

Thea Lazăr, artist

Radu Vancu, writer

Mihai Iepure-Górski, artist/curator