Peste Dunare, one sign of 300x94x29cm + 5 volumetric letters 64x35x27ca each / unique piece / 2014

Residents from communist countries trying to access the capitalist reality often sought freedom on the other bank of the Danube river. Preparations sometimes lasted as much as 2 years, and included geographical documentation and identification of possible hosts in the targeted countries. Between 1980 and 1989, 16 thousands Romanians tried to pass the national south-west border crossing the Danube. Eleven thousands of them were caught and the remaining either died or, having succeeded, were declared missing or dead. Very often the families didn’t reclaim the missings, to avoid persecution. When the bodies arrived on the Yugoslavian shore, they were registered by the Yugoslavian boarder police and dropped in common graves, attributed to the unclaimed Romanians who died trying the crossing. There are Romanian anonymous graves in the cemeteries of Sip, Kladovo and Golbinje, now Serbian territory. However, the story of the ones who tryed the crossing never formed an highlighted history file.

The two 70s/80s commercial signs compose a readymade monumental memento. “Peste” comes from an abandoned fish market, and stands for fish. Having a missing cedilla the sign also reads “over”. Ironically, the two signs composing “Over the Danube” come from business shut down shortly after 1989, being crushed by the new capitalist rhythm, which was the one people were trying to reach by crossing the river.