This issue explores how art in general relates to communities, how it builds or rejects them, how it reshapes or even challenges them.

Cultural mediation emerged as a response to the effects of the abstraction of art and the public’s need to find in art the challenge or, sometimes, the mirroring of a personal status quo.

In my opinion, the words written on the frontispiece of Apollo’s Temple at Delphi, “Know thyself”, are strongly connected to the overarching message of Chronic Desire.

Dana Catona’s art combines the materiality of the visual medium with literary imagery by inserting words in her drawings or ceramics. A fine example of her art is the work entitled now, located at the entrance to the Chronic Desire exhibition.

I spoke with Pavel Brăila (b. 1971, Chișinău, The Republic of Moldova) one afternoon. We chatted about art, politics, Timișoara and dance. He has two works displayed in the Chronic Desire exhibition, I really miss dancing (2021) and Vera means belief (2023).

Taken individually, the works brought together by the RomaMoMA project in the Chronic Desire exhibition raise a series of fundamental issues and draw attention to highly relevant narratives about the history and the current situation of the Roma communities both in Romania and Eastern or Western Europe.

Renée Renard’s installation displayed in the Chronic Desire exhibition is entitled The Most Beautiful of My Possible Lives and was made in collaboration with the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Technologies of the “Regele Mihai I” University of Life Sciences of Timișoara.

You climb the stairs of the Garrison Command building in Timişoara and you find yourself in a labyrinth of micro-universes where each room has its own identity, as if you were crossing parallel dimensions simply by opening the double curtains.

Marinella Senatore’s work is defined by the multidisciplinarity she acquires thanks to the various areas of interest she has studied over time, such as visual arts, music and cinematography.

According to Corina Oprea, co-curator of the exhibition, the letter “x” is used by the queer community (LGBTQIA+) instead of the masculine or feminine ending, as a social convention not currently regulated in the vocabulary of the Romanian language. It was Morrison’s choice that the text be translated into Romanian “in the non-binary version”. This opens a dialogue about how Romanian artists and curators adapt to the discussions held globally about gender and sexuality.

From its symbolic value to the thematization of the relationship with one’s own body, the representation of food in contemporary art documents cultural belonging, interpersonal relations, hierarchies and consumption.