Bucharest: Twenty Years On
This project was the idea of Jane Goodall, a writer based in Australia. The two of us travelled to Bucharest twenty years after the death of dictator Nicolai Ceaucescu to research the playwright Eugene Ionsecu’s relationship to the city and to find out whether it was possible to find visual analogues in the contemporary city for some of the themes in his work. However, the most striking thing about the experience was the contrast between the pristine and ordered People’s Palace and the bizarre, chaotic and rapidly transforming city outside it. Although the People’s Palace is a major tourist attraction for the country, its survival is an unwelcome reminder to many of the old order which seemingly lives on inside the building.
Two images from the project were published in The Australian newspaper along with an article about Eugene Ionescu by Jane Goodall. A photo essay based on the project with text by Jane Goodall is due to be published in The Griffith Review in 2012.