Arts Lab 6.0: Luca Horváth - Month 6

Big Bună Ziua!

Month 6 had a strong opener: 3 exhibitions/caravans in 3 days at the French Institute. Preparing for it was stressful, but when we were actually there, setting up everything in a space that really felt like an “exhibition space”, I wasn’t that worried anymore. It was also really fun to take part in each other’s workshops/interactive parts when no participants were around. And of course, treating ourselves to shaorma when the events ended was quite rewarding. These 3 events also gave me an opportunity to experiment with my very starting level videography (with the funny camera of course) and later on different editing styles.

I started going on a lot more walks this month, whether it was an “oh what is that way?” or just a “need to go Penny”, they were enjoyable walks nonetheless. I think I even got sunburnt when I was walking in Iași. And then some of us went to play billiard which was very silly, considering most of us did not know how to play properly.

For the last personal artwork, for Cucuteni, I decided to create linocut stamps. Finding the materials and carving was quite challenging, since I have only done this once before. I managed to finish the stamps quite fast, just as I planned, because I had a bigger challenge ahead of me. This time, I took on the responsibility to create the catalogue for this museum, taking away Sona’s job. I definitely learnt a lot during this process. At the exhibition I had a whole workshop with my stamps: participants had the chance to pick a design, choose a color and stamp on a piece of fabric. The result was beautiful and the participants also enjoyed the process – from the picking the design and cleaning the stamps they used.

After all these fast-paced and tiring two weeks, everything slowed down a little afterwards. We planned what to do for the last month, cleared up things about the free days and I made pancakes. I helped clean out the garden while the other team organized the library team – now the two most chaotic places in the house are actually pleasant to spend time in. The next few days Soukaina and I could also repair and paint some walls in the house – now, even though it doesn’t look like new, it looks more acceptable.

I also started working on my personal project, which is the quotebook. I have been collecting quotes from everyone throughout all these months and now I’m planning to put all of them in a visually pleasing little booklet. I’m excited to see what I could make this project into and I hope that it will be possible to give everyone a physical copy as well.

We started doing the super-talks as well and I’m excited to see what everyone will talk about. On March 1 Ella came back to the house and to the project, our room is once again full! I also started planning what to do when the project ends, what to do when I go home in a month.

Report written by Luca Horváth, she's from Hungary and she's one of the 14 volunteers participating in Arts Lab 6.0, a project co-funded by the European Union through the European Solidarity Corps program.