Artists and activists from Moldova and Transnistria unite in an exhibition about art under lockdown

Artists and activists from Moldova, the breakaway region of Transnistria, as well as Moldovan creators abroad, have joined forces in a single show gathering artworks made during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Bringing together installations, performance art, drawings, and photography by more than 16 artists, including photographers Ramin Mazur and Mikhail Kalarashan, conceptual artists Ghenadie Popescu and Valeria Barbas, painter Victor Ciobanu, and activist Lilia Nenescu, Breathing With One Voice raises questions on isolation, working from home with kids, and the changing role of our houses during lockdown. The exhibition takes place in the Museum of History of the City of Chisinau, and the capital’s independent cultural space “Zpatiu”. Among the highlights, photographer Ramin Mazur created a hypnotic video, called Corona Scope, in which he merged the vibrations of the coronavirus protein with the “infodemic” — the press images we’ve been bombarded with since the outbreak of the Covid-19 epidemic. Meanwhile, artist Pavel Brăila streamed a tongue-in-cheek performance from his show at the Galerie Michael W. Schmalfuss in Marburg, Germany. Brăila covered the exhibition space in wall-length sheets of paper, painted a football, and hit it across the gallery, celebrating the artist as a performer, the end of isolation, and the launch of the European Championship.

“The exhibition Breathing with One Voice is a polyphony of artists, activists, ecologists who, being eyewitnesses of the pandemic, have shared their experiences and creative thoughts, recording the time that we are living through together,” said Tatiana Fiodorova, the show’s curator.