Arts Lab 4.0: Month IV, Maja Mörchen - 4 months in Romania

4 months volunteering. 4 months in Romania. Technically a little bit less since I was home over Christmas. Still, more than half of my experience is over. We still don’t know exactly when we’re going to finish but right now I expect it to be the end of March. So two and a half months or one and a half museums remain.

A lot has happened in this 4th month just as in the months before and probably also in the ones that are coming. As I said already, I went back to Germany over Christmas. It was definitely good to see friends and family again. I missed them and we spend good time together. Being home and also not having to work was really relaxing. But it was also weird to be back. I fell into old routines almost too easily and it kind of felt like I never left and all my experiences never happened. I think that’s because my life here and my life in Germany have basically no connection, like I’m living to separate lives.

Before going back for Christmas we finished the Cucuteni exhibition. I took great joy in being part of Ataota’s video Genesis. It was really interesting and I hope I can work with her again. I also made dresses for that video. Another great experience was seeing Romanian winter traditions shown to us by a group at Petru Rareș school. After the final exhibition we exchanged Secret Santa gifts and the next day Sara, Federica, Chiara and I left to our countries. 

We reunited in Cluj Napoca for New Year invited by some of the local volunteers. A beautiful experience and a beautiful city. 

Now we’re working towards the Rroma Museum. After a week of planning and gathering information we are now facilitating workshops at a local school. We also had the Arab night a bit more than a week ago. It was both fun and really interesting and informative. Especially about Jordan I didn’t really know anything before and was impressed with the beauty of the country. The food was also delicious. Now the only cultural night left is the German one, maybe I should start to plan.

Maja Mörchen is from Germany and she is doing a long-term volunteering project in our organisation, under Arts Lab 4.0, a project funded by European Solidarity Corps @suntsolidar.eu, a programme of the European Union.