Arts Lab 6.0: Luca Horváth - Month 2

Big bună ziua to everyone who is reading this!

The second month has passed. Even though the dates written on the pictures taken by my funny camera are sometimes incorrect, it was still an amazing month. We travelled a lot, had JEMOM exhibitions and caravans, organized workshops, started MAF, and more.

I learnt a lot this month: how to hang my clothes from the top bed so that they can dry, how to drop my mug in a way that it breaks another mug, how to do the fire for the house heating despite being scared of fire, how to always have time to buy ice cream (even if the weather is cold), how to have a dance battle with a random guy at a Halloween party, and so much more. I’ve been trying to put more effort into my cooking as well, trying my best to expand my collection of “easy meals I can do quickly”.

My life here so far has been chaotic in the best way possible. Conflicts, stressful tasks, jumping into the unknown with the certainty that I can make it out. I didn’t know how to do face painting, the first time I did it was at the autumn event at the house of culture, while my hands were freezing, but I feel like the results I achieved were amazing. I didn’t even know 3D scanning exists and by the time I blinked twice I already scanned 8 tombstones from the Jewish Cemetery of Târgu Frumos. 

While struggling with my personal artwork for JEMOM, I started doubting myself, again. Am I really an artistic person? Is this really where I’m meant to be? Am I contributing to the project enough? I had to remind myself: I am here. With the help of others, I was able to put these thoughts behind me for now and focus on creating something I’m proud of. This is the first time I’m making an artwork with the purpose of exhibiting it, the pressure I put on myself was probably too much and although I am not completely satisfied with my results, I know this experience will be valuable in the future.

Preparing for the first exhibition that was in the house felt like Christmas for me. Everyone cleaning and organizing the space, putting up “decoration” (their personal artworks, in this case), we even put on some Christmas music to match the vibe. When we finished with the preparation, seeing all of our artworks together in the same space was beautiful. And after that, every time we set up our exhibition in Iași, Bacău and the Moldova school, seeing it come together made me extremely proud of us. 

To promote our project and hand them out at our exhibitions, I designed some stickers based on the personal artwork of everyone. Sona taught me a lot about graphic design and I found out that people actually like the little sketches I make of their artwork. I will definitely make more stickers in the future.

This month I was getting more comfortable with living here, shaping my personal space into a sort of bunker. My habits have started to form, a routine is in development.

Report written by Luca Horváth, she's from Hungary 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.