Olt River, 44º15'10.9"N 24º25'09.3"E
Painted photograph from the 6-piece series 'Hacia el mar' (Towards the sea). Local women from Romania merge with their environment through the rivers Argeș, Ialomița, Jiu, Olt, Nera and Cerna, all of them tributaries of the old and, somehow mythical, Danube, a river venerated by the old geto-thracian civilizations surrounded by rituals, practices and beliefs, some of them of universal nature and yet connected with ancient cultures.
The work is bonded together with a poem* that conveys the experiences lived while shooting at the rivers. It expresses the inner feelings as well as those related to the surroundings, connecting oneself with the four elements of nature. This work was exhibited at Instituto Cervantes Bucharest in an installation that created a sensorial space which invited the visitors to explore their own relationship with water and, at the same time, to reflect upon the environmental reality which we are nowadays living in.
*Original poem
El Sol se esconde entre el vapor,
sostienen un grito y un llanto,
que caen, sobre mí.
Desperté.
Soñé que venías a por mí.
Como un remolino con su fuerza,
de pies a cabeza.
Recorriendo mi raíz.
Mi estabilidad, mi solidez
se disuelven en un instante,
en mi muda respiración.
El agua me rodea.
Un agua conectada con la luz y la tormenta.
Un agua conectada con la tierra.
Las ráfagas de viento aceleran mi vuelo.
Destellan mis brotes, germinan mi ascenso.
Oana Totoret, Dana Nedelcu, Alexandra Anastasiu, Iulia Drinceanu, Ana Tanase, Sandra Demetrescu, Alexandru Bugnariu