Photographs from Transylvania 1994/95

EXHIBITION

31. January - 6. April 2025

VERNISSAGE

31. January 2025, 20:00
With musical accompaniment by Antonio Morejon Caraballo

MIDISSAGE

8. March 2025, 17:00
Reading with Dorothee Riese from her book "Wir sind hier für die Stille"

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Opening hours
MO-FR 10:00-16:00

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Radu Darvas, born in Bucharest in 1973, first studied there at the Academy of Arts and later in Dresden at the Academy of Fine Arts. As a young boy, he was given a camera and discovered photography. But it was only a few years later, in the period before and during the '89 revolution, that Radu began to photograph more and more intensively. He developed the pictures in the bathroom of his prefabricated flat in Bucharest. If it were up to him, he would just take pictures, but what emerged are photos with a fine artistic eye that have gained historical value over time. His style dissolved the distance between himself as a photographer and the people in front of the lens.

Radu Darvas passed away in 2015. His photographic estate comprises several thousand black and white negatives and around 70 developed analogue images. Mira Darvas, Radu's second child, wanted to take care of the estate, which led to a small project sponsored by the Department of Culture. With the help of her aunt (Anca Darvas) and her mother (Heike Tuellmann), she is working on archiving the negatives and photographs, as well as analysing what she has seen, some of which is known and much of which is unknown. The complete digitisation of all negatives has not yet taken place. Further rolls of film turned up both in Bucharest and in Dresden. The material that has already been viewed forms the basis for the "Wiedergutmachung" exhibition and provides a very unique insight into Viscri / Deutsch-Weisskirch in 1994/95. Wiedergutmachung, a word that Radu taught his sister, probably a bit of a joke. But today, "reparation" also brings a little peace and closes many circles.

Radu Darvas and Heike Tuellmann met in Viscri in 1994, a time when many young people had already emigrated from their home in Transylvania and often only the older ones stayed behind. For a year, Heike looked after a house belonging to the Initiative Rumänien e.V., where club members, travellers and Bucharest residents slept and listened to music in the kitchen. During the day, they helped the villagers in the fields, in the house and in the yard, doing chores for the association and the villagers. They listened eagerly to their stories. Radu was always there with his camera, capturing moments that today seem a hundred years away from a German perspective. Viscri is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Emigration and tourist development have brought about serious changes in the town compared to the time on display.

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Further information can be found at www.kulturaktiv.org

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Curation: Mira Darvas
Consultation: Simon Wolf

This exhibition is funded by the City of Dresden, Office for Culture and Monument Protection.

The project is funded by the State Ministry for Social Affairs and Social Cohesion. This measure is co-financed with tax funds on the basis of the budget adopted by the Saxon State Parliament as part of the funding programme "Wir für Sachsen".