WPAdmin

The Volunteer 2

WPAdmin · Jul 12, 2026 ·

The Volunteer 2

Inspired by Jeff Wall’s 1996 photograph Volunteer, and drawing on a peculiarly Romanian reality where one frequently encounters departments headed by managers with no one to manage, I created a series of restaged scenes illustrating this situation.

The vacant positions existed on paper, allowing bureau chiefs, department heads and directors in public institutions to automatically claim higher pay. In the public sector, the criteria for holding a managerial role are tied to the number of positions listed in the organizational chart – not the number of those actually filled.

Yo Bro, Give that Dam(n) Water Back! – 1

WPAdmin · Jul 13, 2026 ·

Yo Bro, Give that Dam(n) Water Back! – 1

In mid-2025, as part of a process of inspection, restoration, and replacement of its safety infrastructure, the Vidraru Dam had its reservoir drained for the first time in 50 years. A great deal of fake news has been spread in the public sphere: “The dam is being emptied and they are stealing the gold!”; “We must not let them take our water and our wealth.”

Just as the 2024 presidential elections were annulled after the first round due to external interference, and supporters of extremist parties took to the streets demanding that the second round be reinstated, chanting “Give Round Two Back”, those spreading fake news about water are following the same pattern: technical reality becomes a pretext for emotional manipulation, and the demand for restitution becomes a new slogan.

Yo Bro, Give that Dam(n) Water Back! – 2

WPAdmin · Jul 14, 2026 ·

Yo Bro, Give that Dam(n) Water Back! – 2

Looking Towards the Future

WPAdmin · Jul 15, 2026 ·

Looking Towards the Future

More and more young people are choosing to build their lives abroad. Persuading them to stay in Romania requires more than promises – it demands real conditions: investment and infrastructure, stability, opportunities for personal and professional growth, and the chance to advance in an environment where merit is truly recognized and rewarded. Equally important are the role models capable of inspiring the younger generation. Patriotism cannot be reduced to slogans and nationalist rhetoric – it means education, a commitment to national and European values, and the presence of role models capable of instilling a sense of pride in being part of a community/society.

Liberty Leading the People

WPAdmin · Jul 16, 2026 ·

Liberty Leading the People

after Eugène Delacroix

A generation has passed since the century of humanity’s greatest achievements and its worst violence – and rationally, the age of major conflicts should be over. Liberty, we assume, will lead us toward peace, understanding, and the simple pleasures of life. But history does not move in straight lines. The revolutionary fervor and imperial ambitions of the 19th century can resurface without warning, anywhere, at any moment. It takes remarkably little to stir up resentment, to ignite conflicts that serve no purpose and make no sense. The target is predictable: the outsider. The foreigner poses no real threat, yet difference alone – being other, being foreign – is enough to spark a crisis. Once hostility takes hold, stepping in becomes risky. Some look away; others stand by, indifferent or powerless.

A certain hostility toward foreigners can be observed in Romania as far back as the 19th century, when outsiders settled in the Romanian Principalities and came to occupy primarily urban trades and professions. This attitude, combined with a deep-seated inferiority complex, inevitably strained relations with foreigners and gave rise to an increasingly pronounced nationalist and xenophobic current. Such tendencies became entrenched and persisted over a long period, becoming a reality from which the country has not fully freed itself even today. Xenophobia was openly displayed during the communist years; there is no reason to believe that Romanian society, as a whole, has shed this sentiment. On the contrary, the recent period – against the backdrop of an alarming rise in sovereign-ism and extremism – has been marked by aggressive manifestations of xenophobia, with irresponsible rhetoric from certain politicians only feeding the phenomenon.

Large-scale conflicts are being waged in the name of liberty and democracy, devastating millions of defenseless lives, claiming countless victims, and leaving ruins in their wake. The evidence is all around us: a pointless war in Ukraine, another unleashed in the Middle East, and the chain of crises they have set in motion. In parts of Africa, inter-ethnic violence of unimaginable brutality unfolds alongside a wave of coups. In Latin America, military juntas and cartels wage open war against the state. In the Far East, tensions simmer – China and Taiwan, North Korea and the rest of the world. And looming over it all, the standoff between Russia and the West. That such events remain possible defies rational explanation. It is as though we have circled back to the early 20th century: the same hunger for domination, the same impulse to reshape humanity by force, the same ambition to upend the global order.