Iulia Gabriela Toma on Artyčok

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Although I studied Textile Art and Textile Design00:00:36.122
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and hold a MA in painting00:00:40.190
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I believe that i find myself working with textile00:00:43.150
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better than in other areas.00:00:46.484
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It's an exciting and generous area for me00:00:50.543
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which involves an entire process,00:00:55.144
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from fiber dyeing,00:00:57.769
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warp preparation, weaving the tapestry in the frame00:01:00.283
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or... the sewing machine -00:01:03.098
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if we talk about traditional techniques,00:01:05.862
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to experimental techniques00:01:08.549
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of fiber and textile surface.00:01:12.343
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The whole process can also be seen as a ritual00:01:16.496
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besides the technological part,00:01:20.923
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and that can lead to unsuspected surprises.00:01:26.017
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"From the blue robe to the flower gown, with one stop in Corporate Augmented Reality"00:01:30.211
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is the title of a project that was exhibited00:01:35.444
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in a show called00:01:40.546
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"What We Destroy and Celebrate at the Same Time"00:01:43.698
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produced by Salonul de Proiecte in 2012,00:01:46.899
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and it was actually an installation00:01:51.861
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where I exhibited work clothes -00:01:55.062
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overalls, robes, dressing gowns,00:01:57.296
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aprons - up to the corporate suit.00:02:00.233
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The project proposed a study00:02:05.554
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on the social code fixed by wearing standard clothes,00:02:10.472
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work clothes,00:02:14.410
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and the interest for the changes made in the status and representation of female labor,00:02:16.141
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in the workplace and the domestic activity context,00:02:20.601
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and how the robe, as a tool of labor in socialism,00:02:24.997
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finds its usefulness in the domestic labor sphere today.00:02:30.346
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Work clothes had stitching interventions,00:02:35.003
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some of them were cut, others were modified and resewed .00:02:38.340
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I applied a trimming from a dressing gown to the corporate suit,00:02:42.205
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while others were imprinted with the screen printing technique.00:02:46.550
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I worked using a book written by David Kideckel,00:02:51.846
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"Getting By in Post socialist Romania. Labor, The Body and The Working-Class Culture"00:02:55.737
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published by Polirom, in 2010,00:02:59.673
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that was an anthropological study about the worker's identity00:03:03.351
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before and after the Revolution.00:03:07.610
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The texts that were printed on the clothes00:03:10.435
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were actually some quotes from this book00:03:15.545
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that represented testimonies of workers about what life was like during socialism00:03:19.621
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and how it changed after 1989,00:03:24.572
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about fear and alienation, insecurity, stress,00:03:27.798
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and how this all affected the quality of life,00:03:32.874
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about beauty, masculinity, femininity, sexuality...00:03:36.530
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These narratives00:03:43.727
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are somehow a reminder of the uncertainty of the present,00:03:47.511
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of a sense of abandonment,00:03:51.427
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or the lack of respect for today's work and workers.00:03:55.006
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I'll read one worker's testimony:00:03:58.033
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"You could've lived with your salary, you could've bought furniture for your home....00:04:04.571
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everything was much cheaper then,00:04:07.989
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back then they didn't allow such a distinction between the rich and the poor,00:04:10.791
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but with the today's wages you can't make ends meet.00:04:14.624
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I ended up buying clothes from second-hand shops,00:04:17.807
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when Ceausescu was alive, there was no such thing,00:04:20.369
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everyone could afford new clothes, quality ones."00:04:22.993
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"Red Shirt" is a project00:04:26.250
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that was presented at the "Dependent Artist's Week-end" festival in 2014.00:04:29.611
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It was, in fact, an action that showed00:04:37.332
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the remembrance of a social trauma.00:04:41.043
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TRICOUL ROSU (Red Shirt) was a knitwear factory00:04:43.667
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that closed down in 1998,00:04:47.361
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and 3000 jobs belonging to women mostly00:04:50.644
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vanished along with it.00:04:55.890
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That place is now a vacant lot00:04:59.697
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with remnants of walls,00:05:04.851
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a lot of cement and a field ...of poppies.00:05:10.694
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The action lasted for many minutes -00:05:16.544
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I was stretching a wire that covered the entire space, marking it,00:05:19.826
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reminding us that there...00:05:25.018
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was actually this factory.00:05:29.209
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TRICOUL ROSU wasn't just a textile factory,00:05:34.272
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but a social place, a community aggregator...00:05:39.112
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...the school, the nursery and the salary of an entire neighborhood.00:05:43.963
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The project "Untitled Fighter", exhibited at IVAN Gallery,00:05:49.911
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was an installation that contained four objects:00:05:53.668
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a judo suit, a bulletproof vest,00:05:57.538
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the protective vest of the fencing suit and a kamikaze vest...00:06:01.402
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I started this project with the idea of a struggle for survival,00:06:05.625
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of the protection suit and the ritual that its use induces in practice.00:06:10.837
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A suit like this, for defense-attack,00:06:18.798
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tasks about the tools that today's woman00:06:23.018
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must use in order to resist,00:06:27.032
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to survive...00:06:29.359
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I'm talking about insecurity, fear, the instinct of conservation,00:06:32.048
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emotions that we face every day...00:06:37.300
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These four objects, some built by me,00:06:40.873
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others already made - I mean the judoka suit,00:06:44.958
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to which I applied stitches00:06:49.171
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normally found in traditional costumes,00:06:52.530
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a protective vest with a white collar and stole golden edges,00:06:55.321
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a protective vest for the fencing suit, split in two halves,00:07:02.405
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...one of them showing my birth year, spell out in rhinestones.00:07:07.551
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The belt-apron, which I call the "kamikaze apron",00:07:12.793
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is an unfinished item, made from pieces of fabric I gathered in time...00:07:15.964
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some of them have their own story...00:07:21.505
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Another project, "Divination"00:07:26.019
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started from a ritual, a superstition,00:07:29.154
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that of guessing the gender of the unborn baby.00:07:34.755
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These tests were made in the past by women00:07:39.691
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in rural, but also urban areas,00:07:42.945
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tests that I knew,00:07:47.274
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because one of them was performed to my sister.00:07:51.795
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I knew the salt test...00:07:55.993
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which goes... something like this:00:07:58.895
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you took some salt and sprinkle it on the pregnant woman's head,00:08:01.956
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without her knowing...,00:08:05.218
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and after that you would wait...00:08:07.374
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if the woman placed her hand to her mouth -00:08:09.157
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it was a sign that she would give birth to a girl.00:08:11.292
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If she placed her hand to her nose,00:08:13.645
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the woman would give birth to a boy.00:08:15.780
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Another test, with slippers:00:08:18.248
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it is said that if the pregnant woman neatly arranges her slippers -00:08:22.086
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it's a sign that she'll give birth to a girl, but if the slippers were thrown off -00:08:25.305
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it was clear that the baby will be a boy.00:08:28.758
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Another test was the one with the wedding ring,00:08:31.313
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and it is also represented in my work00:08:35.000
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through embroidery:00:08:39.591
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if the wedding ring moves in a straight line -00:08:42.041
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then the woman will give birth to a boy,00:08:46.936
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but if the wedding ring spins in circles -00:08:50.690
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the woman will give birth to a girl.00:08:52.815
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The "Perfect" project is a video00:08:55.389
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in which I redo a ritual that my father00:08:58.033
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used to perform almost every day,00:09:01.470
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a gesture that is deeply rooted in my memory,00:09:04.225
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the cleaning of the tunic, the cap00:09:07.818
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the polishing of buttons, the attention to every detail00:09:10.455
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was very important for him -00:09:14.421
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and the buttons were left at the end00:09:16.577
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and polished until they shone like gold.00:09:19.446
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This activity somehow reminds me00:09:24.891
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of the domestic space, of those chores00:09:26.950
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that were strongly contradicting with that male figure00:09:31.049
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that is very present in the public and institutional sphere00:09:35.744
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and totally absent from our family life...00:09:40.431
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Maybe that's why I kept alive this memory of my father,00:09:43.912
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if I think about it,00:09:48.190
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he was the one who taught me how to knit...00:09:50.434
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I can almost see it: a sergeant in military uniform ...knitting.00:09:54.487

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