Ancient traditions and customs, full moon nights, fantastic creatures of the dark, creepy legends are part of the exhibition 'Vampires and Werewolves', dedicated to the bestiary imaginary in Romanian culture and which will be on display at Art Safari from October 31 to November 17, at the Dacia-Romania Palace.
"The experience proposed by this Art Safari exhibition is an immersion in the Romanian imaginary, sometimes through the reinterpretation or integration of elements established as pop culture. The exhibition 'Vampires and Werewolves' targets - as the name suggests - some of the most captivating figures of the macabre fantastic. From the unfavorable historical chronicles of the controversial ruler Vlad Tepes (which inspired the creation of the vampire character in Bram Stoker's novel Dracula) to the popular traditions of werewolves and the strigoi (the night walkers or these zombies of local folklore), supernatural creatures have captivated the collective imagination for centuries and have marked the emergence of popular beliefs and practices whose traces still linger in the local countryside," said Cristian Vechiu, curator of the exhibition, reads an Art Safari press release sent to AGERPRES on Tuesday.
The exhibition offers visitors the opportunity to explore these beings of the macabre fantastic, not only through the prism of fiction - where we find varied representations: Mihai Eminescu's poem, The Strigoi, George Cosbuc's poem The Strigoi, Vasile Alecsandri's The Night of St. Andrew, Vasile Voiculescu's novel The Hermit or Mircea Eliade's Miss Christina, but also through the lens of visual arts, be it popular, modern or contemporary art.
Visitors can see folk objects such as the jabber and the drag from the collection of the National Museum of the Romanian Peasant, traditional handicrafts, such as the so-called "devil's folk masks", from the collection of the Dimitrie Gusti National Village Museum, stuffed animals from the patrimony of the National Museum of Natural History Grigore Antipa, illustrations, modern references from cinema, history and literature and works signed by established artists such as Corneliu Baba, Tara von Neudorf, Roman Tolici, Ioana Batranu.
Beyond the usual Western clichés with which vampires are associated and, consequently, the Romanian space, the exhibition comes to show the public the different faces of creatures really specific to Romanian traditional culture.
According to the organisers, 'Vampires and Werewolves' is also a good pretext to (re)discover the origins of these creatures, but also how they continue to create stories and provoke the imagination, from the spectacular anime inspired by the image of the vampire to the new film adaptation of the classic Nosferatu, directed by Robert Eggers. Each corner of the exhibition will inspire fear and fascination, evoking aspects of Romanian folklore, sprinkled with gothic and horror imagery.
On Halloween, Art Safari is also organising two special events, one for the general public, including guided tours of all the exhibitions, music and prosecco, on Thursday, October 31, from 20:00 to 23:00, and another one, dedicated exclusively to students, on November 1, from 20:00 to 23:00.