Altart Foundation, Cluj-Napoca (RO) presents, In Onomatopee project space Eindhoven,
in collaboration with La Criée centre d’art contemporain, Rennes (FR), Kulturni Beograda Center Belgrade (SRB), University of Art and Design in Cluj (RO), European School of Arts Bretagne Rennes (FR), Onomatopee Eindhoven (NL) and Fabrica de Pensule Cluj-Napoca (RO),
in the framework of the “A.C.T. Democ[k]racy” project, supported by the European cultural foundation,
the exhibition Occupy UBB.

Some exhibits do bear inherent poetry…. but this does not mean you should start contemplating. You are not here for this. You are more than a passive recipient of hegemonic knowledge produced by our current domination. You are a maker of knowledge, a cultural contributor just as much as anybody. And this is a transformative exhibition. So start making, unmaking and remaking the exhibition. Start this now.

We are hereby exhibiting our stories and objects related to the two week Occupy of the Babeș-Bolyai University of Cluj, Romania (26.03-09.04 2013). The stories are told by us - the community that made the Occupy happen - and are focusing on the collective process of organizing public debates, workshops, formulating claims and negotiating. Alongside with our stories we are exhibiting objects we used during the Occupy.

The opening set of exhibited objects serve only as your gateways to enter the story and be part of the Cluj Occupy. They are connectivity agents. Think about how these objects were extracted from their original habitat and lost some of their "mojo" in the process of exhibiting them here. This is why we need you to re-contextualize, or even better, to trans-contextualize them. Think that objects become productive only when they are being used, given, circulated. So feel free to rearrange objects. Take them home. Use them. Bring them back or don’t. Bring in other objects. And comment on the objects and stories using the available post-its, or any other way you feel like. No opinion is insignificant, no narrative too small.

Just as the exhibited stories reveal power relations, dependencies and solidarities among the Occupiers and beyond,  the way you use this exhibition (both stories and objects) should not be mere articulations of pre-coded meanings but hybrid forms of materiality and sociality. Think about how your actions relate you to the Occupy community. This way this exhibition becomes yours and an exhibition about you, too.

After a month we will pack whatever this exhibition has transformed into and exhibit it again in Cluj. In this mediation process the exhibition can develop a contact surface between Eidhoven and Cluj, where participation is becoming social technology and is producing - in the framework of our shared practice of the everyday - common knowledge and common history.