Via Vita/ Via Vita II

Two examples :

1. In Timisoara there is a Museum of the Roads, maintained by the Regional Office for Roads and Bridges, a museum which has the same exhibits and looks in the same way as during the communist period. Although immediately after 1989 the portraits of Ceausescu were removed from every public institution, here, in this museum, they were kept exactly as they were. Alongside with the statistics about the performances in the production plan and the photographs with Ceausescu giving advice to the workers, there are also exhibited pictures from the parties of the company employees, from the choirs, shows and sport competitions, albums with poems and drawings made by the employees.

2. Following a protocol between the City Council and Iulius Mall Timisoara, starting with 25 May 2006 all civil marriages in the city are officiated at the Iulius Mall. From now on, if one wants to have a legal marriage in Timisoara, one has to have it in a huge mall (they say it’s the second in size in Europe), amongst shops and advertising. Every Saturday, one can see tens of groups of wedding participants who are mounting the steps of the mall as in a sort of temple.
Via Vita and Via Vita II are two videos which are documenting the way in which dominant ideologies – communism and capitalism – are confiscating private life, turning it into a symbolic capital which legitimates them.

2007, Protokoll gallery , Cluj