In a world where laughing is everything, in a faraway land, formed before dinosaurs, one man... when your life is not yours's anymore, when everything you know does not match, on a planet far, far away in space, one girl...two girls, now, more than ever, in a racing car, with a robot at the wheel.
From the darkness of the Transilvanian underground, one online graphic magazine will invade your toilet room and bring original comics and contemporary short prose that stimulate to express freely.
In 2011, when this contemporary trio project started (Cristina, Codruţa, and Oana), we were somehow feminist and totally fed up with press and TV content in our country, we already had internet, and we used to do research, after work, and when it was possible: meet and debate-create, exchange homemade marmalade (gem) and syrup, whilst doing collage art, and setting the intervention plan. Applied arts are inclusive teaching methods and support activities for any age, as art is a way of communication; therefore, from different domains, we converge.
Cristina Gagiu is a stable presence as a visual artist and theoretician; she is a fighter, a fearless mother, and a great inspiration. She was the first muralist I have seen in Cluj-Napoca, and she approaches all possible surfaces, plus she is a specialist in upcycling to the high fashion level. Nothing stops this woman from creating. Codruţa Cojoc can be found right now in my stories as the musical muse, since she is a specialized teacher and a big supporter of electronic music. Codruta is teaching international music, integrating recycling materials from which musical instruments can be made on the spot, and she uses rhythm and dance. As for me (Oana Maroti), I´m a poet, cultural mediator, character developer, specialized in inclusive communication, psychology, and education sciences, with a certain knowledge of the immigration reality and the colonialist effect. As I had to change towns and countries to support my studies and this project, I´m also a cook, a customer service specialist, a fast train specialist, a multilingual interpreter, and a worker in any area you can imagine, as food and accommodation are not free. Solo women work incredibly hard to survive, as the inclusive strategy is still dysfunctional, even if, since 2017, we know step by step how to apply it.
None of us lives in the same place as the other, yet there is a bond. We have all worked with persons in disadvantaged situations, and also made intervention plans and support projects for neurodivergent individuals or groups. Each of us is super specialized and inclusive in approach. I´m exposing just a small part of the project, so that we might receive some help from the international community, as the research extends to all domains and ages, and implies health support.
One day, during a strong debate about the lack of hygiene knowledge, mental pollution, and poverty (practically the living conditions in our country, which can also be found in many other countries that recorded a low economic development), it was kind of clear that even if socializing is not our top skill, it´s time for a strong-feminine intervention. It all started with some collage-art sessions and recycling, and continued with hours of research and planning, whilst debating music albums.
The reality we were living in was dirty and non-inclusive (it still is), so we have made BD de Buda. BD as a reminder of the sequential art content in pre-comics times, and Buda as far away but ok, inclusive approach. Years have passed, the eagerness to express and reformulate reality remained - Expect mixed language, Transilvanian slang, environmental prose and poetry, experimental and comparative philosophy, fashion, street art, trash art, recycling art, grotesque, absurd, fantasia, dark humor, SF and cyberpunk, culinary poetry, curatorial storytelling for now, and more to come.
In more than a decade of asking for help, our projects have not received any support from the responsible cultural departments in different cities and countries.
I wonder why there is no funding for complex projects whose implementation has a social interest.
Everything published on this blog is related to human rights and environmental protection.
Thank you for reading this. If you wish to support our projects, there is a donation button above, at the top of this page.
Graphic Creators:
Pablo Kopak : tattoo artist, our logo creator, and the first person with whom I ever had a discussion about comics and bd in childhood.
More of his bloody work here
Daniela Cristina Gagiu: a versatile artist who takes advantage of comic derivations of this ordinary-extraordinary life. As a single mother, she is an example of woman power, a big survival of the post-industrial realism that is searching for her femininity. In her works, she shows the 3 stages in a woman´s life, and her characters can meet in the same painting, as they would meet in reality, only that this time they will be surrounded by surreal theatrical decoration. In need to express what is natural and feminine, this artist made a strong connection with the opulent exterior, which reminds me of Lorca and Garcia Marquez. Cristina’s style concentrates mostly on the fantastic elements of nature that apparently manage to conquer large periods of time and to bring up knowledge about us. In the last year, with the pandemic pressure, Cristina Gagiu´s work is just amazing, check it out:
More of Gagiu’s charming work here: www.crispaint.blogspot.com
Claudia Chelaru: Visual artist whose style has been described as powerful magical realism. For me, Claudia is more of a lyrical illustrator and a lyrical photographer, interested in social aspects like public transportation, technology, and interculturality. Chelaru´s androgynous, contemplative portraits are integrated into the pixelled background. There is always some communication between botanical life and machine interaction. In her latest projects, Claudia Chelaru uses mixed media to generate a form of grotesque style towards horror, she makes a connection between her own East European culture and the Japanese grotesque. There has always been a link between these cultures and I can’t wait to see what Claudia does next. Will it be a feminine-delicate perspective of horror?
You can check her work here: https://linktr.ee/claudia.chelaru
Hortensia Mi Kafchin: born in the year of Chernobyl’s disaster Kafchin became an explosive science fiction artist, searching for identity, in a society where trans people are not generally accepted and suffer social exclusion. So that she can find herself, Hortensia Mi Kafchin had to pass through the emigration process. She’s specialized in mixing worlds and identities, elements from East and West, cyborgs and demiurgs, technology and grotesque, Kafka and flowers.
http://www.nicodimgallery.com/artists/hortensia-mi-kafchin
Michi D: changes big surfaces with ease, his vibrant colors bring to life powerful underground symbols, each of his paintings communicates a need for social action. This is the kind of visual artist than can make total sense in graffiti.
More Michi´s works here
Nella Vilímková : tattoo artist from Czechia who enjoys comics, bd and mixed media
We are building together a graphic story called Mind Travelers, I write she draws or illustrates expressive, unpredictable motifs. There’s no limit for the text and no limit for the image. Nella’s line is engaging in deconstruction, shifting from fractal landscapes, distorted, surreal visuals to complex control of space. Her work abounds of highly contrasting colors, metaphysical symbols or she intelligently engages in the horror vacui style, making it impossible to imagine what her art will look next.
More of Nella´s drawings and tattoo´s here
Pneuma Pnea: is some interesting artistic mix: esoteric and futurist all together, with a great sense of humor and social implication. He makes his own amazing graphic books where he presents a solid manifesto. Grotesque shapes are everywhere while the graphic line seeks out the beauty of a dead-end situation or at least some color for the soul. This artist exposes in his graphic work the cruel effects of an abandoned generation, as it is now and the difficulty of finding others like you, sensation of solitude immersed by all the social communist and post-communist oppressions.
You can find 10 of his wonderful graphic books here.
Toni M.: writer, was my friend (not my lover), he helped me with the first blog in 2015, and we wanted to explore issues like immigration and our situation as a lost generation, born in the ´80s, struggling for life in the ´90s and in the early 2000s. Toni wrote about institutional corruption and human trafficking, showing the reality between Romania and Spain, a reality I have also endured in 2 women’s generations.
You can find more of Toni´s creative writing here: https://conceptivorblog.wordpress.com/meea/
He also left a legacy, a personalized and interesting travel guide in English, with good tips for a smooth travel and safe vacations. Those intrigued by Romania or Transylvania, please check it out. Toni did not live to publish his books; it is my duty to do so, and for that I need your help!
Underground Art & Literature - open access to culture 