The tenth issue of the ArtSens newspaper completes the series dedicated to Chronic Desire, the collective exhibition that opened the Timișoara 2023 – European Capital of Culture programme. The previous issue analysed part of the works and concepts presented in the exhibition spaces – the Timișoara Garrison Command, the “Corneliu Miklosi” Public Transport Museum and the Ștefania Palace. These locations, which have been used for various purposes over the years, as well as the interventions in public areas around the city (Matei Bejenaru – Researchers in Sf. Gheorghe Square/Praporgescu Street, Silvia Moldovan – Dovecote at MultipleXity, Dan Perjovschi – Insert, an intervention on a moving tram, and the Timișoara National Art Museum – the staff entrance on Mercy Street) provided the members of the entire community, regardless of their age – students, adults, families, seniors, vulnerable groups – with the opportunity to admire the exhibits, meditate on them and talk about them.
This issue explores how art in general relates to communities, how it builds or rejects them, how it reshapes or even challenges them. Proposals to reflect on man’s existence in harmony with nature or raising awareness of issues such as the dynamics of political power, economic inequality, social injustice and the limited power of world organisations were also discussed in all the previous ArtSens editions.
In the following pages, we invite you to delve into topics such as education for art versus education through art, participatory art, the range of gender identities, social responsibility in art, the representation of food in contemporary art, alternative communities or the dynamics of the relationship between audience, art and artist. No matter how often such topics are debated, artists will always turn their attention to them.