by Ştefan Constantinescu, with the participation of the author
followed by a surprise event:
Romanian Music from the Golden Age Open Mic for all Ages
Ceauşescu's regime in Romania self-titled itself 'The Golden Age,' and it is its personal revisiting, neither nostalgic, nor bitter, that Ştefan Constantinescu attempts in his "Golden Age for Children", for the use of both those that have lived through it, and the 'children' that cannot imagine it existed.
Join us for the launch of this book and a conversation with visual artist Ştefan Constantinescu about personal histories of the Golden Age.
His innovative, fully illustrated pop-up book employs the interactive features usually found in children's books to provide an unconventional history of the last twenty years of the communist regime in Romania: from 1968 when Constantinescu was born till the 1989 Revolution.
Stefan Constantinescu juxtaposes popular culture trivia, ephemera and family snapshots from his own youth with historical facts about Ceaușescu's life and the oppressive policies implemented, to examine the survival strategies of the Romanian people. Autobiography merges with apocryphal stories about the Golden Age, to unravel a history organized in sections such as 'Bucharest,' 'School,' 'On Vacation,' 'Army,' 'The Earthquake,' 'Shortages,' as well as in the section 'Did you know?' where readers can learn what Ceausescu's salary was, what the daily food ratio for a person was or the name of the dictator's favorite American show. Other testimonies by Ion Grigorescu, Alina Serban, Ana Maria Zahariade and others accompany that of Constantinescu in a series of letters.
'The Golden Age for Children' was published, in a trilingual edition (English-Romanian-Swedish) by the Romanian Cultural Institute in Stockholm, Labyrint Press, and pionier press in Stockholm, with a series of exhibition and events organized at Botkyrka Konsthall in Stockholm, and the Periferic Biennial in Iasi.
SAT, May 9, 7:30 pm RCINY - THE GALLERY / Carturesti book exhibition
Book Lauch: THE GOLDEN AGE FOR CHILDREN
and encounter with Ştefan Constantinescu
followed by
9 pm RCINY Auditorium
Romanian Music from the Golden Age. Open Mic for all ages
FREE ADMISSION
More about Stefan Constantinescu's work
Read excerpts of the book in Romanian
