Create Your Bucharest

What potentials for development lie within Bucharest, the capital of Romania and one of the largest cities in the European Union? The idea competition Create Your Bucharest seeks to attract social and cultural visions from artists, designers, and architects for the multifaceted city of Bucharest, which has been shaped by a varied past, and its widespread cultural community. From the official launch date on 3 October 2014 until 15 January 2015, entrants can submit innovative concepts and site-specific works for one of the most dynamic urban centers in Southeast Europe.

The results of Create Your Bucharest will be presented in the MAK exhibition Mapping Bucharest: Art, Memory, and Revolution 1916–2016, one of the central projects of the VIENNA BIENNALE 2015: IDEAS FOR CHANGE (12 June – 4 October 2015), which was initiated by Christoph Thun-Hohenstein, Director MAK.

Create Your Bucharest is made possible by generous financial support from OMV and OMV Petrom. The integrated, international oil and gas company OMV with headquarters in Vienna focuses its cultural sponsorship efforts on cultural exchanges between its core markets of Austria, Romania, and Turkey in contemporary art. For ten years OMV has been the majority shareholder of OMV Petrom, the largest oil and gas producer in South Eastern Europe with headquarters in Bucharest. With this project, the two companies aim to use its economic involvement to further contribute to cultural dialogue.

In keeping with the interdisciplinary, internationally oriented VIENNA BIENNALE 2015, Create Your Bucharest is aimed at artists, designers, and architects, including teams as well as students of art, design, and architecture. Romanian citizens, Romanians living abroad as well as international creative students and professionals living in Romania are invited to enter the competition. Entries may include projects from the areas of fine art (painting, drawing, prints, mixed media, sculpture, object art, photography, video,film, new technologies).

The aim of this open competition is to find new patterns of social and cultural perception in the Romanian and international communities and to make this potential accessible to the public within the context of Bucharest. The prestigious jury, whose members include Peter Weibel (head of the jury and Director of the ZKM), Barbara Baum (OMV ART PROJECTS, Vienna), Andreiana Mihail (art consultant, Bucharest), Alice Rawsthorn (design critic, International New York Times, London), and Christoph Thun-Hohenstein (Director, MAK, Vienna), will evaluate the entries at a jury meeting in Bucharest based on their relation to the artistic practice of the entrant, innovation, artistic and social relevance, sustainability, and feasibility.

As part of the exhibition Mapping Bucharest: Art, Memory, and Revolution 1916–2016 curated by Peter Weibel and Bärbel Vischer, Curator of the MAK Contemporary Art Collection, the prizewinning entries to Create Your Bucharest, along with internationally renowned works by Romanian artists, will illuminate the inspiring diversity of the contemporary scene in Bucharest and Romania against the background of historical and current avant-garde movements.

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