10:00
Raluca Croitoru (b.1989, Constanța, Romania) is a visual artist and performer currently based in Rotterdam (NL). Croitoru uses a multidisciplinary approach that coalesces elements from fine arts, choreography and performance. She works predominantly with video and performance.
Her practice focuses on embodied and tacit knowledge. Croitoru uses choreography as a tool for investigation and expression, creating scenarios and frameworks that generate specific texts, movements and gestures. She is particularly interested in the meeting point between choreography as an artistic discipline and the informal, internalized choreographies that can be found in public spaces, social spheres and domestic spaces.
Croitoru graduated Cum Laude from the Master of Arts program at the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam (2016) and is a graduate of the Photo-Video Department of the Bucharest National University of Arts (2013). Since 2021, Croitoru has been teaching in the Autonomous Practices department at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
Croitoru’s works have been presented, among others, at WET and TENT, Rotterdam (NL), Changing Room, Berlin (DE), Time-Based Art Performance Festival, Portland (USA), National Museum of Contemporary Art, Bucharest (RO), Art in General, NYC (USA), Yellow Brick, Athens (GR), Malaposta Theatre, Lisbon (PT), Skånes Konstförening, Malmö (SE), Art Encounters Biennial, Timișoara (RO), Playground Performance Festival, Leuven (BE).
Location
Baia Turcească
Time
10:00
A language that is felt (2024, 4K, 17'56")
A choreography for the camera observes how the relation of friendship is inferred and embodied through proxies such as touch and gestures, and how it takes a unique and fluid form within a given group. The work riffs on Sveltana Bojm’s question “What is the scenography of friendship?” and approaches (transhistorical) friendship between women as a site of political potential and as a dynamic and improvisational process.
BODY SHIFT ERGO DRIFT (2018, full HD, 14'34")
Using choreographic, scenographic and theatrical elements, the video reflects on collective corporeal memory and the symptoms of neoliberal capitalism. The film uses as a starting point the writings of choreographer Rudolf Laban on effort, ergonomics and “industrial rhythm”. The artwork speculates upon relationships between labour and leisure, production and consumption, living patterns and routines, the dayshift and the nightlife.
To Cast a Shadow (2017, full HD, 13'35")
A site-specific work in a former water plant built in 1914. The content of the work is inspired by the four different levels of hearing and sound-making. The artwork addresses solidarity between women in times of conflict, the relationship between loss of hearing and war, the use of sound for establishing a sense of identity and for interacting with the environment.
Suite for the Office (2017, full HD, 10'37")
A site-specific choreography unfolds in the transit and waiting spaces of an office building, outside office hours. The performers engage with the spatial design of the building, rethinking social norms through alternative forms of collective interaction. Their presence, movements, sounds and gestures reflect on social behaviours in relation to post-fordist labour environments.