Romania's Camin Cultural: between political programme and cultural appropriation from 1955 to the present day

Introduction: Throughout a 50-year period, prior to December 1989, almost every city, town and village in Romania was furnished with a cultural centre, called Camin Cultural or Casa de Cultura. These terms can be translated as homely places for culture or houses for culture. The construction of thousands of such institutions materialized the utopian dream of communism to create a communal place where everyone could be both engaged and surveyed.
This practice-based research proposal has two complementary elements: an historical and anthropological comparative analysis of Romanian Camin Cultural, carried out for the dissertation element of the proposal, and an experimental documentary film for the practice component developed through a process of collaboration and reenactment with past and present-day Camin Cultural users.
Research background and questions: My goal is to identify and present the diverse, conflicting, ways in which these centres currently operate; focusing on internal micro-processes and community usage. A comparative perspective will analyse the transformation of similar institutions within the former Eastern Bloc and wider European context. My research questions are:
- How did everyday social and cultural practices in Casa de Cultura differ from, and politically challenge, a centralised policy agenda during the communist era?
- How were these places appropriated in the social context of different multi-ethnic communities?
- In the context of a growing interest in socially engaged art in contemporary Romania do state owned Casa de Cultura represent a distinctly different model of participation in cultural activities than that provided by increasingly privatized contemporary art and cultural institutions throughout Europe?
- Within the framework of an experimental film, how do strategies of reenactment and performative interviews enable us to make sense of shifting cultural strategies and the value placed upon diverse cultural expressions?
This research proposal looks at how Houses of Culture were not only destinations for disseminating official culture, most often in bluntly ideological and propagandistic ways, but also places where the population was 'activated' creatively through encouraging contact and participation in activities such as theatre, visual arts, music and crafts.
Research methodologies: For the past 20 years I have been active in various contexts, including academic institutions, alternative galleries, museums, art biennials, film festivals, hospitals and multipurpose community centres. This proposal extends and develops my methodological and artistic focus on the de-centralisation of cultural discourse and the sustainability of creative diversity within a system of established values.

The ethnographic, historical, and artistic research methodology will combine quantitative, qualitative and immersive anthropological-artistic strategies including: focused archival research, visual and textual analysis, extensive field work, placing a high emphasis upon documented interviews in Romania (I speak fluent Romanian) with former/present participants in Caminul Cultural to identify how local residents actually remember and perceive the history and function of their local House of Culture.

The filmmaking process will combine reenactment, simulated auditions and elements of cinéma vérité.
The filmic strategy challenges a documentarist tradition that heavily served propagandistic functions under 'Soviet Colonisation' through introducing performativity and individual agency. Participants will reenact personal stories; recite from official documents, press articles and statements from official archives. My intention is to create a stage/forum of negotiation wherein participants are interpreting source materials; selecting what is useful and relevant whilst deciphering the rhetoric of propaganda.