The Parisian Romanian Cultural Institute presents the photographic work of Patricia Morosan in her first solo exhibition in Paris from 9 May to 22 June. The exhibition shows her project (I) Remember Europe, which won the Jury Prize at the 2019 “Rencontres photographiques de Montpellier” and was nominated for the Wüstenrot Documentary Award and the Haus am Kleistpark Berlin Art Award 2019.
Fig. above: (I) REMEMBER EUROPE, book by Patricia Morosan, Fotohof Edition, 2022
(I) Remember Europe is a photographic journey that reveals the centre as an existential quest and a political metaphor. For her work, Patricia Morosan visited places in seven Central and Eastern European countries (Estonia, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Slovakia, Germany and Poland) that were considered the “geographical centre of Europe” in different historical periods. The work shows not only the variability of borders – but also an emotional positioning in the coordinates that define themselves as the geographical centre of Europe.
“Morosan’s journey into the heart of Europe, or should we say the hearts of Europe, takes her beyond the seven points identified by the cartographers to countless places. The photographer’s project is not so much to try to capture the essence of a supposed European identity, to try to locate its soul, as to accept to let go of such an idea in order to discover, with each encounter, new centres, which in turn will designate new margins, new “edges of the world”, new intermediate spaces. At each moment of its journey, Europe seems to tip over to find a new equilibrium a little further away.
(…..) What is this Europe that gives the project its title and what does the preceding “(I) Remember” mean? Should we read in it, apart from the withdrawal of the subject, the expression of regret for a vanished world, or the reminder, the exhortation to keep alive, in its name, a community of values, images, men and women? A bit of both, certainly: at a time when the polarisation of the world seems to want to deny the slow sedimentation of our histories, Morosan reminds us that our shared Europeanness can only exist in the permanent vacillation and renewal of our identities. According to etymologists, the name ‘Europe’ evokes the vastness (eurys, the ‘wide’ land) of the gaze (ops, the ‘eye’). This is what it means: a continent that exists only through the gaze we cast upon it, whose limits are constantly being pushed back or redefined by the collective expression of the millions of subjectivities that populate it .“
Sonia Voss
The Romanian Cultural Institute is located on Rue de l’Exposition in the 7th arrondissement in Paris and is surrounded by several renowned art galleries, which – in addition to its proximity to the Eiffel Tower – makes it possible to enjoy numerous cultural activities in one day.
Patricia Morosan was born in Romania in 1984. She lives and works between Berlin, Bucharest and Athens.
PATRICIA MOROSAN is a visual artist who works with photography and film. She studied photography at the Ostkreuzschule in Berlin and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Leipzig. Her work deals with the themes of intimacy and identity through a poetic visual language. She is represented by Galerie Marc Franzkowiak in Berlin and is part of the international photography collective Temps Zero based in France. Her work has been shown in international exhibitions: Les Rencontres de la Photographie d’Arles, Fotohaus Paris-Berlin; Les Boutographies, Pavillon Populaire Montpellier; Villa Perochon Niort; at the Musée d’Art Contemporain, Goethe Institut, Switch Gallérie in Bucharest; Haus am Kleistpark, Berlin ; Kommunale Gallérie, Berlin; Benaki Museum, Metamatic TAF, TV Control Center (KET), Athens; Atelier Varan, Paris; ICR Gallérie Lisbon, 12-14 contemporary/FotoWien, Vienna; the Noorderlicht International Festival, Foto Forum, Bolzano among many others. She has won several awards: in 2019 the Jury Prize of Les Boutographies, Montpellier, and the Prize for Courage of the Journalistinnenbund Germany. She was nominated for the Art Award Haus am Kleistpark in Berlin (2019), for the Wellcome Photography Award London (2020), Wüstenrot Documentary Award (2020), Gomma Grant (2021), BUP Award (2022). She was nominated for the FUTURES programme in 2022 and received numerous grants: Initial of the Akademie der Künste Berlin (2021) and various grants from the Berlin Senate (2020, 2021, 2022, 2023). Her works are part of public collections, such as the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Bucharest and the collection of the city of Montpellier in France, as well as several private collections in Europe.
WHERE?
Galerie Macadam
1 Rue de l’Exposition
75007 Paris
France
WHEN?
Opening & book presentation:
Tuesday, 9. May 2023 from 6:30pm
Exhibition:
Wednesday, 10. May – Thursday, 22. June 2023
