We learn new ways of thinking and doing things: the EU4Culture grantees bringing their experience home to Moldova
Over the past three years, the EU-funded EU4Culture project has provided mobility grants to 400 artists and cultural professionals from the EaP region. With this support, 50 creatives from the Republic of Moldova travelled throughout Europe to expand their professional experience and networks. As a result, they are now better equipped with newfound knowledge, skills and connections with their colleagues on an international level. The local creatives who have benefitted from the EU4Culture mobility grants are hence making their individual contributions to advancing the cultural sector of the Republic of Moldova.
When discussing the experience of travelling to other European countries through the support of the EU, Maxim Ciorba, Andrei Andronachi, Mariana Harjevschi, and Tatiana Arcan, highlight the importance of finding inspiration, which have been integral to furthering their work. The four beneficiaries also cherish their new acquaintances, some of whom are a phone call away and interested in collaborative endeavours.
Maxim Ciorba – establishing ties with the Romanian film industry
Maxim Ciorba is a documentary film director and a lecturer at the Multimedia Department of the Academy of Music, Theatre and Fine Arts in Chisinau. He produces documentaries focusing on the meeting of folk and contemporary musical genres of the Balkan region. Max’s work has been screened and recognised on the international stage in Europe as well as in the United States and Canada. As an academic and a director, he strives toward improving his industry in the Republic of Moldova, and the EU4Culture mobility grant scheme has supported him in doing so.
Max went on an official five-week visit to the National Film Institute in Bucharest, Romania. “I found new people who helped me understand how I can explore my PhD and understand it differently,” he recalls. Max also points out that “I got to know the whole backstage of the university – I saw what their feedback between and to the students is like, and it is interesting to witness this and apply it to the local context.”
Importantly, he had the opportunity to work with the Head of the Film Department at the Institute. Now Max is in touch with him and plans to bring a documentary festival from Romania to the Republic of Moldova. Moreover, the university is planning a course “focused on music and they want me to go next year and teach this in Bucharest.” Max thinks that this is also a result of his mobility project, which helped him find ties with his colleagues in Romania.
“Sometimes, life seems mundane – you do one thing and then the next,” Max points out, “such trips mess with your head in a good way because you find yourself in a different environment where you experience new ways of thinking and doing things.”
With the inspiration, knowledge, and established relationships in Romania, Max is now developing his teaching methods, has finalised his PhD, is in discussions about bringing the documentary festival to Moldova, and conceptualising a new documentary TV series about a Romanian band.
Andrei Andronachi – bringing magic to Cahul
As a child, Andrei was first bewildered by a magic trick performed by his grandfather. He decided to become a professional magician 20 years ago. “I decided to do this because I wanted to give this feeling to others as well,” Andrei says, “first, I started doing magic to entertain my friends but, after attending a magicians’ event in Romania, I started doing it professionally myself.”
“I learned about the EU4Culture mobility grants scheme at a seminar in the Palace of Culture of Cahul,” he remembers, “I got interested in the opportunity instantly because I wanted to learn more about magic tricks in an international setting.”
After winning the grant, Andrei travelled to Saint Vincent, Italy, with some of his Romanian colleagues. He attended lectures by foreign magicians, learned new tricks and got to meet some of the recognised professionals in his field, who shared their insights into the art of magic.
“During the evenings, there was a competition,” Andrei says, “we stood there and watched it to get inspired before the pasta parties where we shared magic tricks with each other.” These social events were also enriched with gatherings of magicians in costumes, adding to the magical atmosphere of Andrei’s mobility project.
He also remembers a small bazaar where various items for magic tricks were sold. “I bought some of the items and learned how to construct some others myself,” Andrey points out.
Along with new acquaintances, magic tricks, and ideas for stage performances, he values one insight, which he discovered during a seminar and while watching the competitions. “The competition participants used music in their acts by connecting their motion to it, and hence accentuating their tricks with sound,” he says, “this is when I realised that music places a major role in such performances.” Inspired with the discovery, Andrei is working on incorporating this aspect into his acts more, especially when performing on a big stage with lights.
He also dreams of organising an international magic festival in Cahul, bringing the magicians who he met during the mobility. “I want people to see incredible performances by international magicians,” Andrei says. Beyond this, he is working on another idea – a magic school for children and adults. “Learning certain tricks took me three years and, if I had proper help and mentorship, I would have needed a few months to achieve the same result,” he says.
Mariana Harjevschi – transforming the municipality library system of Chisinau
With a PhD in Library Studies, Mariana is the Director of the municipal library of Chisinau, overseeing and managing 27 branches of the institution, which dates to 1877. “My main responsibility is to coordinate the managers of the branches,” she says. “I am also working on interesting services and programmes to promote the library on the local level.” Currently, Mariana is advocating for the renovation and restructuring of the system and facilities she is managing to fit them to modern demands.
With the EU4Culture mobility grant, she visited the newly opened Oodi Library in Helsinki. “This is one of the most recently built public libraries in Europe,” Mariana says, “I wanted to get more inspiration for my advocacy strategies and discussions with public authorities on the vision about the future of municipal libraries. I needed more arguments about why Chisinau needs a modern library.”
“I discovered that the library has new functions, features DVDs, CDs, and other objects, beyond books,” she states. “It is also an urban place for doing various workshops in makerspaces with free machinery, such as 3D printers, accessible for everybody.”
“Its first floor features a café and people can meet each other in an informal setting, search electronically for materials in which they are interested, and visit the EU corner,” Mariana says, “the second floor is devoted to makerspaces and the third one is full of books.” The accessibility of the building and its citizen balcony overlooking the cityscape also left her impressed by its architecture.
The exploration of the Oodi Library and the meetings with the institution representatives and the vice mayor of Helsinki, have helped Mariana gain a more in-depth knowledge about the functions and spaces of this contemporary building, standing in front of Finland’s parliament.
She has applied this knowledge to the development of a feasibility study for a modernised version of the institution, which she leads. “We work in a traditional way,” she says, “and I wanted to see the vision for the modern library.” Some of the contemporary features, such as makerspaces, are included in the concept for the new municipal library.
“We have a complex approach,” she remarks, “it involves not just dreaming and visualising the modern library but convincing the municipality to invest money.” According to Mariana, who is actively advocating with public officials for her new vision of the institution, “a discussion has been held with the municipality of Chisinau, and we identified the place.” She continues advocating for the modernised library with her key stakeholders with a vision inspired by the mobility project, funded by the EU.
Tatiana Arcan – supporting the digital transformation in rural areas
Tatiana manages the InnoVillage project featuring a social media platform that connects students and villages with each other. “We have a programme that brings them together and combines their interests to develop digital content,” she says. “We continue doing this work because students want a platform like this for experimentation, and villages need tools for promotion on digital channels.”
Within the framework of InnoVillage, students get to travel to rural areas and create audiovisual content, which gets posted on the social media page of the project. “Local populations, diaspora, and international tourists can see this content on the InnoVillage social media page,” says Tatiana. Some posts featuring the rural traditions of the Republic of Moldova reach over 4,000 engagements.
Beyond the social media page, Tatiana and her colleagues are also working on creating pins with visuals on Google Maps, to enrich the database with relevant content for domestic and international travelers. They are also working on a new village travel bot for tourists, which will feature the content produced by students from the Republic of Moldova.
Importantly, InnoVillage also provides consultations and promotional tools to rural community members who want to communicate about their businesses to wider audiences. “Many of our beneficiaries are businesses in agrotourism,” she points out. “We help them in the digital transition and diversification of services.”
As part of her EU-funded mobility project, Tatiana visited Poland to attend conferences, workshops and study visits in villages. “I gained more information about the local communities,” she indicates, “I learned how they do things and what can be brought back to Moldova.”
Tatiana established new contacts during her mobility and found inspiration from several initiatives, which she got to know about during the study visit. “I met a film creator who focuses on storytelling via short documentaries,” she recalls. “He renovated his old house, transformed it into a photo studio, receives tourists, and guides them on small tours of the lake and forest.” Tatiana concludes that “in Moldova, we need to diversify our services via culture.”
Together with her colleagues, rural communities, and a network of students from Moldova, she continues putting efforts into supporting the promotion of her country’s villages, which offer “pure culture,” as Tatiana puts it.
In conclusion
The EU-funded EU4Culture’s grant scheme has opened doors and provided professional growth opportunities for artists and cultural professionals from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Republic of Moldova, and Ukraine. As a result of the support package, creatives from the region are now more competitive on national and international levels. Importantly, many of the artists and cultural professionals who have benefitted from the EU4Culture’s mobility grant scheme actively contribute to the decentralised advancement of their sectors in the regional cities of the Eastern Partnership region, which is one of the EU-funded project’s key priority areas.
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