Călin Dan Emotional Architecture 3 Isnb 1234-5678-234-5
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BUCUREŞTI 2011 CĂLIN DAN EMOTIONAL ARCHITECTURE 3 ISNB 1234-5678-234-5 CĂLIN DAN EMOTIONAL ARCHITECTURE 3 ANTURAJU’ AND OTHER STORIES (INTERVENTION IN THE PALACE) 003 Photos: Larisa Sitar INTRODUCTION 014 MONUMENT FOR THE UNKNOWN DOG 016 THIS IS OUR CITY 017/131 Stencil Campaign. With Suzana Dan THE COLIBAŞI PENITENTIARY 018 ANTURAJU’ AND OTHER STORIES (VOICES FROM THE INSIDE) 050 CARNE / CANE (A PLAY) 089 Călin Dan. With illustrations by Vali Chincişan “CA(R)NE. THIS IS OUR CITY” AT THE ODEON THEATRE 115 Photos: Cosmin Ardeleanu WHO LET THE DOGS OUT? 122 Jean Boumans NEW EUROPE. OLD JAILS 125 Bruno Ştefan WINGS FOR DOGS 134 2 ANTURAJU’ AND OTHER STORIES INTERVENTION IN THE PALACE 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 PEOPLE LIVED HERE A HOUSE IN THE HEAD AND A MOUSE ON THE TONGUE CĂLIN DAN Far removed from Emotional Architecture 2, this book binds together set out to build the most beautiful church ever seen. But what the steps and stages of a project I worked on discontinuously was built during the day falls down during the night. The architect between September 2005 and the day I write these lines. On the decides that a human being needs to be buried alive within the surface, it was a project conducted in a (then) high security prison walls of the church if the dark forces at play in that sacred place located in the south of Romania that resulted in a collaborative are to be put to rest. Who should be the victim? Someone closely theatre performance given by and about the inmates themselves. related to the building works, someone dear to those involved, a On a deeper level, it was an emotionally exhausting process of family member of someone working on the site, the first to bring exploration into the depths of human nature as shaped by recent them food. Of course, it is the wife of the architect who is first to history in Romania. Deeper still, it was a painful walk through the bring food, and her husband is forced to keep his promise. She is labyrinth of language. What justifies the inclusion of this in fact immured alive, together with her unborn baby. The building duly a series of projects, under the label of Emotional Architecture is stops falling down and can now be finished. And so it is. the unexpected revelation I had while conducting interviews with the inmates: language is a construction that surrounds us with I entered the universe of the inmates through words. Their words. invisible walls; words are the bricks and deception is the mortar of I didn’t know any other way. My open call was answered by some this building. 60 people, who wanted to talk to me and maybe join the project. The beginning was painful, because their stories unveiled a world It cannot be otherwise – no matter how transparent and light and of ignorance, poverty and injustice completely new to me. The benevolent the message, communication remains fundamentally ill-fate of these people was obvious; the circumstances of their deceptive, for it quickly builds a prison of alien truths around the crimes were clearly connected to their marginal positions; the listener. While talking I lock you up within my story. Whether you conditions in which they spent their time in prison were unfair. All like it or not, you will inhabit it until your own words build a wall this made it impossible for me to have an objective view of their around me. And so on. I am in your house of words, and you are in personal responsibility, impossible for me to judge their crimes. The mine. The more we talk to each other, the thicker the walls become. more I listened, the more I was overwhelmed by a feeling of guilt And our voices reach each other ever slower and softer, until they and powerlessness. Like in the Greek tragedies of antiquity, these fade away. Until we are annihilated by our conversation, buried people were moved in circles by powers beyond their control. alive within the walls of words we build around each other. And that was hard to witness. But after several encounters, I began to spot a pattern of communication, a kind of protocol in The Romanian folk ballad Mânăstirea Argeşului (The Monastery on the unveiling of the truth, a special way of designing the language the River Argeş) tells of an ambitious local ruler (a voievod) who through which petty crimes, horrible deeds and their distorted lives 14 in general were shaped for my benefit. I began to sense how the I was there when it all happened. I was buried too; I was holding walls of words they were building around me were slowly growing. my breath, waiting for the walls to fall over me, to finish me off, to From then on, I could also start to build back myself, without any make me free, somehow, so I would no longer feel ashamed of my remorse, for we had found a place where we were equal – language. silence. And then I was there, in Colibaşi, carrying the Palace in my head and surrounded by the walls of words built by the When Nicolae Ceauşescu, that ambitious local ruler, decided to inmates. And I suddenly realised that those inmates were the build in his courtyard the largest palace ever seen, he also decided leftovers of the Palace, the dogs under the city, the souls within that somebody should be buried alive in its walls. Ceauşescu’s the walls, the consequence of Ceauşescu’s obsession with courtyard was Bucharest; he swept it clean of all the old buildings architecture, of the hate he had for his people. That was the story and churches and monasteries he hated so much; he erased hills I was going to tell, through the voices of the inmates. They were and made them into lakes; he cut the city into tiny pieces that going to build walls of words for me, around the Palace, inside the were eaten by stray dogs; and he talked. He talked to his people Palace, killing it. – constantly, daily, relentlessly. He built up thick walls of words around the people. He buried them alive, wherever he found them. Tallinn-Helsinki-Bucharest, 21-23 January 2011 15 THIS IS OUR CITY A MONUMENT TO THE UNKNOWN DOG February 2007 has been the moth of the dogs. – she stenciled ORAŞUL E AL NOSTRU / THIS IS OUR CITY all over the centre of Bucharest. It is still there, the winged dog, I was walking my spoiled cocker Spaniel, Tonga, in the parks and and so are his thirsty fellows, roaming the streets. The thirst for meadows around my Amsterdam apartment twice a day, for hours. water is as powerful as the thirst for affection. I learned this from In between, I was laboring painfully at the play Carne/Cane, a Tonga. C. D. fable meant to synthesize my impressions of the penitentiary system in Romania. The main characters were dogs who dreamt Amsterdam, February 2011 of being humans. Meanwhile, my friend Gabriela Tudor, director of the Pro Helvetia office in Bucharest, and a dog lover, invited me to submit a proposal for a public commission dedicated to the closure of their activities, after 10 years of local presence. Tonga was running after the ball, relentlessly. Then she was drinking from the ponds, hoping that I will let her have a swim in the cold water. Back in Bucharest, the street dogs were wrestling with not only fast cars, cruel people and extreme weather, but also with thirst. If and when we think of street dogs, we do it always in terms of food. Shelter comes seldom to mind – water, never. So, I thought that a fountain for the street dogs could be a good reminder of that. The text on the fountain says: “This is also our city”. The monument didn’t happen; not in that form, anyway. But a few months later, in May, while the one time performance of Carne/Cane with inmates-actors was approaching, I thought that a stencil version of the monument would be an appropriate viral message for the city. Suzana Dan, another friend, and colleague, and dog lover, helped me with the visualization and – together with an anonymous gang from her circle of extreme sports fans 16 DETACH PAGE. CUT OUT THE BLACK AREAS WITH A SHARP POINTED BLADE. GO TO PAGE 130. 17 THE COLIBAŞI PENITENTIARY 18 19 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 ANTURAJU’ AND OTHER STORIES (VOICES FROM THE INSIDE) ENGLISH VERSION ALINA BOTTEZ A.A. Well, how can I explain, there was this girl who did it for money, see? And we took her, we didn’t give her no money and she ratted us to the police, to the cops on duty. Three persons in the deed. She was under age too, 16 she was. She asked for 400 million, but we gave her 150. After that she wasn’t OK with it and she handed us to the guard. Yes, she was from the neighbourhood. Us, they gave 5 to 18, they classified us under rape and deprivation of liberty, like she declared, that we’d deprived her of liberty. I was under age too when I committed the deed and I got myself half the time. The guy who was in the deed with me and was of age got himself 7 years.