The sixth edition of the Art Encounters Biennial unfolds under the title Bounding Histories. Whispering Tales., a curatorial proposition shaped by a close reading of Timișoara’s urban fabric and its layered histories. Curated by Ana Janevski and Tevž Logar, the Biennial activates three exhibition venues—the Garrison Command (a former military building), FABER (a repurposed factory), and the Art Encounters Foundation (a former kindergarten)—as living witnesses to the city’s social, cultural, and political transformations.

Many of the works, including five newly commissioned pieces, directly engage with the histories and temporal palimpsests embedded in Timișoara’s spaces. The dialogues between the works navigate the intersection of historical events and contemporary crises, childhood and care, displacement and labor. The artworks bear witness to loss and destruction while also pointing toward the possibility of reparation. The exhibition opens a space where new forms of solidarity can emerge—where echoes of resistance, survival, and transformation continue to resonate, carrying the potential to disrupt and reset some of the many degrading dynamics of our contemporary world. A space for the whispering of reimagined tales, and for the bounding and bouncing of new stories.

Curated by Ana Janevski and Tevž Logar

Liam Gillick and Anton Vidokle, Camaradzi, 2025 

The film Camaradzi focuses on the fall of communism in Eastern Europe. At the core is the transcript of a secret emergency meeting of the Romanian Communist Party held on August 1st, 1989. The English translation of the text was discovered by the artists in the archives of the Woodrow Wilson Institute in the USA. It records a discussion between Nicolae Ceaușescu – the then leader of Romania – and senior party members about the consequences of Poland’s Solidarity movement. A complex reflection on the ‘dangers’ it might pose to other communist regimes in Eastern Europe, as well as potential strategies for further action.

The film is carefully structured in three parts all filmed in a dark studio space using endlessly rotating cameras. First we see the actors rehearsing the transcript. Its language leads to confusion over differing definitions of solidarity, democracy and socialism. The actors attempt to unravel these paradoxes in their analysis and rehearsal. Then we witness a series of warm-ups. Finally we experience a dramatization of the meeting itself. The film features Jim Fletcher, who portrays Nicolae Ceaușescu and is celebrated for his work with the Wooster Group and with Richard Maxwell and the New York City Players along with Sean Lewis, Nicholas Elliott, Kate Benson, Brian Mendes, Rafael Sánchez, and Muheb Esmat.

The film is one part of a two part work originally produced by the Vilnius Biennial of Performance Art.