The Persistence of looking 

by Ana Maria Micu

Opening –  09 october, 2025, 6:00 - 9:00 PM
Scanteia +, Casa Presei Libere, Corp A2, parter, Piața Presei Libere nr. 1, București

The Persistence of Looking” is a solo exhibition by Ana Maria Micu, an artist whose practice is grounded in everyday experience and explores the transformation of lived reality into painting. From her apartment in Botoșani, she has developed a unified environment where studio, home, and balcony garden converge into a continuous system of observation and creation.

Her paintings begin with photographic fragments of the domestic interior, later reinterpreted through subtle shifts in light, colour, and composition. The resulting works are not mere reproductions but reformulations, where perception, memory, and interpretation overlap to form new visual presences.

By slowing down perception and insisting on close attention, Micu positions her practice within an international tradition of meticulous observation. Her paintings create a space not only for representation but also for inhabitation — a rare form of intimacy where objects, plants, and light become part of the same visual ecosystem.

Curated by Adrian Bojenoiu

© Ana Maria Micu

Cola & the Chips

Silvia Amancei & Bogdan Armanu

16 October - December 20, 2025

“Cola & the Chips” is a collaborative project where Mumbai (India)based music producer and sound artists Sneha Khanwalkar will work together with artist duo based in Sandnes (Norway) Silvia Amancei & Bogdan Armanu and develop a music video for the single “Cola & The Chips” (2025).

The above mentioned song aims to highlight the accelerated and consumerist lifestyle specific to contemporary forms of production and consumption. Following the constant interest in sound, in its multiple forms, digitally mixing disparate noises, the sounds of local instruments and voices, to produce a melody or a sound field, Sneha aims through this song to capture the essence of the urban and the melodiousness of the crowding of lives and rhythms. Capturing sounds specific to life in contemporary urban contexts, the collision of destinies in constant motion, accelerated towards an uncertain destination, Khanwalkar wants to use this music of the cities, as a backdrop for the single “Cola & The Chips”.

The videoclip will look to expand the anthropological aspect to the visual aspect, seeking to add new filters of understanding through in an attempt to illustrate the complexity of the interweaving of contemporary life. Using as main characters food-delivery-couriers from different contexts and cities (real or imaginary), “Cola & The Chips” will try and grasp the complexity of contemporary system of production and the accelerated lives surrounding it, where every second becomes quantifiable and every activity is interrogated from the perspective of time and capital efficiency.

Thus, in the landscape of contemporary urban capitalism, this type of work perfectly mirrors the ideological framework of the hope of affirmation through work, acceleration and speculation, while accepting a precarious existence, in constant fear of failure, being aware that there is no social safety net in case you are no longer able to perform your activity/work.

© SABA

Captive in Mobility

Andrei Nacu

16 July - November 20, 2025

"Captive in Mobility" investigates the effects of digitalization on labor and collective identities in the contemporary economy, focusing on the analysis of gig economy work and the phenomenon of platformization. Coordinated by artist Andrei Nacu, the project examines how digitalization contributes to the atomization of individuals and the dissolution of collective subjectivities, with an emphasis on food delivery workers. In the gig economy, food delivery workers exemplify precarious labor, lacking rights such as social protection or job security, and are often isolated by digital technologies and competition from platforms like Uber Eats and Glovo.

The project proposes the use of group photography to create new collective subjectivities, reclaiming the social and symbolic space lost to platformization. Inspired by Ariella Azoulay's concept of "potential history," group photography challenges digital separation and control.  This project seeks to recover these fragments through visual art, constructing collective images that transcend the boundaries imposed by digitalization.

© Andrei Nacu