Gabriela Isaila | News
The Representations of the Building of the Faculty of Letters on the 8th Hungarian Cultural Days of Kolozsvár (Cluj)
In the competition Örökségünk Őrei [The Wards of Our Heritage] students from several high schools from Cluj formed groups and quested for archive pictures, written documents and legends about representative monuments of the city, among others about the Marianum, i.e. the building of our Faculty and the parade (commonly: big park). The material was then rearranged by the Erdélyi Audiovizuális Egyesület [Transylvanian Audiovisual Association]. The exhibition that came to life as a result makes an attempt to show these buildings differently, through the students’ eyes. The exposure came off in the frame of the 8th Hungarian Cultural Days of Kolozsvár (Cluj), and it was preceded by a workshop on the history of photography. This allowed the participants to get acquainted with image recording techniques that are the same age as the buildings themselves and with the deposit of the old-world photos, respectively copyright-issues. A second meeting had as subject the creative reuse of the archive pictures; the pupils visited old pictures’ locations, replayed photos and made collages. The curators of the exhibition are Melinda Blos-Jáni and Mira Marincaș.
The present-day building of the Faculty of Letters, the so-called Marianum (the name derives from the School Sisters of Notre Dame, who originally ran a seminary for girls in the property in question) is also an important subject of this unusual enterprise. We were glad to be partners of the initiation and expect back the students to take fresh photos of our well-known locations.
The pupils from the Brassai Sámuel High School who had chosen the Marianum came indeed back to their favorite spot and with the help of the curators prepared an exciting renewed material about the past and present of the grand and labyrinthine building that houses the faculty.