Arts Lab 6.0: Ella Maillard - Month 2

When I returned from our little holiday after Folcloristica, we spent a Saturday preparing for the French night with Savane. We cooked and cooked and decided on the activities we were to present. We asked everyone to dress in red and white to match the theme of the feria in Bayonne, we taught the beautiful art of protest and sang an anthem of the manifestations, we did a “Paquito” with the cat. It was a great pleasure to share my part of earth with others, but I must admit that it was also a lot of stress to prepare food and games for more than fifteen people in a day. 

The next day was the autumn fest in front of the house of culture. It was very cold but also full of light and sun. I teamed up with Salma to do a ceramic workshop. We made the kids print leaves on the clay (now we have plenty of them to fire in the kiln by the way, and lots of masterpieces) and we were marveled ourselves because we made negative of the bark of the trees. 

The following week was a very long and full one in which we made our personal artworks and put together our first exhibition for JEMOM. Călin and Mihaela accompanied me to Roman to gather 654 rocks on the banks of the Moldova river. We changed spots three times while the day was quickly running away but somehow, we did it. I was wondered by the motivation of my two companions to help me regardless of the craziness of my idea, I was filled with love and gratitude. The day after we went to Iași for a Caravan in a high school. I presented my meter square and made the children draw and write messages on some of the stones I brought them. 

That Thursday I ordered a taxi and took all the heavy bags of stones to the Jewish cemetery. For the whole afternoon I assembled the rocks into a large spiral in front of the common grave. I attracted the attention of the kids of the neighborhood. At first, I had to stop them from throwing the stones at each other when I was away from the bags for a bit too long. But that turned out to be an opportunity to talk with one of their mothers, Andreea, and to learn about the relationship that the neighborhood nourishes with the cemetery: a playground for the kids, of course, but also a space to collect resources (the wood of the vegetation in it), a place to reunite that they honor themselves: last year they collected wild flowers to remember the people buried at the far end of the cemetery. Drawing a spiral in that field brought me a lot of peace. I enjoyed the solitude of this moment while feeling connected to the people buried a few meters away. 

On the 25th of October was the night of poetry of FILIT Festival in Iași. I took the train and spend the night listening to Romanian, sometimes understanding, sometimes not, but always sensitive and soothed by the sonorities and the rhythm. I came back to Târgu Frumos for the exhibition. Despite the tiredness of my sleepless night, I was happy to talk about my artworks and even happier to see other people’s projects. 

The free days after that were memorable. I went to the forest and walked to Poiana cu Cetate. I watched people gather mushrooms between the bushes and moss and stopped for a soup in front of the antic church. On my way back I made two very sweet encounters, both of which were with French speakers: the game was for them to practice French and for me to answer in Romanian. On Monday we went to Iași with my dear roommates and I befriended the guardian of the French Institute (I wanted to go to the library but it was too late so he offered me biscuits) and Viorica, the lady who knits in the passage of Piața Unirii (I was always greeting her while crossing the boulevard and as I was about to join Sona and Luca she stopped me to give me chocolate because it was her birthday. We chatted for a while and I bought her a hat. She told me that “Ela” refers to an eye color in Turkish, and Sinem confirmed. Ever since, when I go to Iași, I never miss an occasion to stop by and say hi, last weekend we danced a bit and made soap bubbles to fight against the cold. I really hope she can find a place to sleep soon, the weather is getting so harsh with the snow.)

When we started work again, I was relieved to talk more about schedule and respecting hours and working days because I needed to set boundaries and to be able to organize my personal time. Since then, I’ve been keeping track of the time I dedicate to the association and learning to find more balance as I believe this is the key to health as well as productivity. 

The next adventure was Bucharest with Rahaf. We went there for three days to present the JEMOM project at the Jewish film festival. I really enjoyed spending more time with Rahaf, we have matching freedoms. It was definitely not a rest, but a lot of beautiful things happened. A list of them: weaving relationships and networking with the people of the festival was challenging but also surprising and a success; the synagogues I visited were richly decorated and I learned a lot about Judaism that I had no clue about; I got to wander around the Lacul Herăstrău, where my grandfather used to live; on our free time I wrote in some very cool coffee shops and met with one of my friends. 

At our return, we had our second exhibition in the Muzeul Pogromului of Iași paired with the conference. It was a crazy day. A lot of people came, I was joy to see Mircea and Brândușa and friends from Iași. I think it was a very positive outcome to reach a wider audience, both for the project and for us to expand our bubble outside of Târgu Frumos and Act House. The evening, we celebrated by taking a coffee at Negru and came up with the idea to do our next exhibition there (hopefully we can make it). 

Meanwhile the vegetation in the cemetery was being cut, and we started to clean the trash that had been accumulating there and to scan the tombstones. Mihaela was then convoked at the municipality, and we accompanied her with Ziad and Saleh. Meeting the mayor was an event, let’s hope that everything goes as planned and promised. 

We also did a Caravan for a high school in Bacău. We took the train with my dear train people and the hills around were golden with sunrise. On our way we had fun finding new homes for the stickers we made for JEMOM, we challenged the students of the Caravan to spread them too in public spaces so that as many people as possible could scan the QR. We all reunited for a late lunch in an Italian restaurant in which we sat silently but with relief because the day had been long. We discovered the island of Bacău and walked around before going back home. 

That weekend I went to Piatra Neamț to honor a promise. A bouquet of flowers, a bird as a compass and two ladybugs, buburuze. I filled my lungs with fresh mountain air and decided that I would come back soon to meet my grandfather’s sister. 

Finally we had the MAF residency in Liceul Petru Rares. I worked with Nikola to do papier mâché masks with the kids. The number of students we had each day varied a lot but overall I liked the children we had and teaming up with Nikola was full of peace. We helped Soukaina and Sinem for the mural and I realized that I had missed painting on walls as it reminded me of great moments in Colombia earlier that year, as well as in Paris earlier even, maybe I’ll do it for another occasion. For the last day of the residency we went to the hills of Buznea to take pictures with the masks and it felt nice to discover a green space not so far from home. A shepherd and his goats passed along.

Lately I also spent more time at the ceramic studio to experiment with the glazes and to prepare items for the Christmas market. As I am writing the kiln is still on, I’m excited to see how everything turns out tomorrow morning. 

Report written by Ella Maillard, she's from France and she's one of the 14 volunteers participating in Arts Lab 6.0, a project co-funded by the European Union through the European Solidarity Corps program.