Curated by Marius Babias and Sabine Hentzsch, the Spaţiul Public Bucureşti | Public Art Bucharest 2007 project represents a trans-disciplinary discourse on art, architecture, urban development, education, and youth culture, in society and the public sphere. Spaţiul Public Bucureşti | Public Art Bucharest 2007 includes a series of artistic projects, public debates, and media interventions, and it aims at confronting the public with social developments, initiating discussions, and emphasizing the cultural contribution to the development of democracy. Influenced in Romania by both globalization and post-communism, public space is an indicator of the state of society and democracy, as well as of the social relations between the inhabitants of a city or country. The nucleus of the project is represented by a new project space, which covers heterogeneous cultural practices and a large spectrum of urban scenes in a single setting with multifunctional purposes. The project space is a meeting and information point, an archive, a place for presentations and debates, thus representing both a platform for the overall project and an “artistic project” in itself.

The way in which a city is structured, and the ways in which “living”, “work”, “commerce” and “leisure” are combined reveal aspects of social parameters from the past, and allow a conclusion on the conditions of life under post-communism. Public space reflects the general situation of the city and of society. The public space of a city is defined, first of all, through the social interaction of its inhabitants as well as through the way in which people living in the city perceive, experience and inhabit their city. The public space is an active mode for the real experience of the city by its inhabitants.

Spaţiul Public Bucureşti | Public Art Bucharest 2007 is a pilot project organized by Goethe-Institut Bukarest in partnership with Institutul Cultural Român (ICR) and Allianz Kulturstiftung, which will continue in 2008. The following artists have been invited to take part in the first stage of the project in 2007: Mircea Cantor, Anetta Mona Chişa / Lucia Tkáčová, Nicoleta Esinencu, H.arta, Daniel Knorr, Dan Perjovschi, and Lia Perjovschi.