Neja Tomšič / Nonument Group: CICRLE – touring in Cluj-Napoca

immersive documentary installation with narration

Touring in Casa Transit, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, organized by Centrul Cultural Clujean.

Neja Tomšič is a visual artist who made a name for herself both in national and international arena with Opium Clippers – a performance she describes as a visual essay – as a performing artist who builds her work on meticulous and in-depth research. She is also an exceptional storyteller who can develop a narrative from a cup of tea, starting from a small sip of the precious liquid to colonial and mercantilist shifts in the world order.

Neja Tomšič is part of the Nonument Group collective, a group of interdisciplinary artists, architects, and theorists who derive their artistic actions from research, mostly in public space. Nonument is defined as architecture, monuments, public spaces and infrastructure, the meaning of which has changed as a result of social or political changes.Circle was created as part of the Stronger Peripheries: A Southern Coalition project, based on the themes of work and happiness. During artist residencies in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, and Mondaino, Italy, Neja Tomšič and her group explored public parks as neuralgic points of public life.

The starting and focal point of the theme is a specific park, the park of railroad workers in Cluj-Napoca, which has undergone many transformations. Using various recording and research methods, Neja Tomšič explored its history and current state, and particularly the remnants of the past that are layered in the earth – material relics, and are also stored in the imagination and memories of people and other living beings.