COURAGE

connecting collections

Through colour photographs and slides, the Alexandru Barnea private collection documents the demolitions imposed by the communist regime in the centre of Bucharest following the devastating earthquake of 1977, which served as a pretext for the destruction or mutilation of many historic monuments. The policy of demolishing the architectural and urbanistic heritage has been considered one of the most aberrant and arbitrary measures in the recent history of Romania. 

András Kisfaludy’s collection suggests ways of interpreting retrospective gazes on the alternative culture of the socialist period. While Kisfaludy is the owner of a sizable private collection that concerns alternative and dissent culture of the era, he is more a creator than a collector of documents. During the late 1950s and early 1960s, he was a member of the famous youth gang called "Kalef" (in 2006, he made a film about the gang). From 1968 to 1971, he was the percussionist of the underground band "Kex.” Kisfaludy began to make documentary films on cultural opposition in the 1990s. The core of his oeuvre was done between the early 1990s and early 2000s.

The status of the collection is special because the rights of the movies belong exclusively to András Kisfaludy, so the collection exists only as a private collection. However, the majority of his films are accessible via Youtube.

This ad-hoc collection consists of the work of Binka Zhelyazkova, an emblematic Bulgarian cinema director, as it is preserved in the Bulgarian National Film Archive, plus related materials. Zhelyazkova was among the first generation of professional Bulgarian cinematographers and one of the first female directors not only in Bulgaria, but in general. The collections informs not only about the work of this notable director but gives also insight into the development of Bulgarian cinema throughout the entire period of state socialism.

This collection tells the sinuous story of the restoration to its former glory of the Black Church, a Gothic monument of the highest significance for the collective identity of the Saxon community in Transylvania. Launched by the local German-speaking elite during the 1930s, the restoration of the Black Church in Braşov was carried out during the communist period despite such politically driven adversities as the atheist system of values and the policy of so-called of “urban systematisation,” which envisaged the demolition of an important part of the architectural heritage of Romania.