With: Rumänisches Kulturinstitut Berlin

Bucharest in the 1980s: Ceaușescu’s ‘systematisation’ programme is in full swing in the Romanian capital: one-third of the historic centre has been wiped out to make way for imposing buildings and wide avenues, intended to honour the regime. Despite Ceaușescu’s particularly dogged approach towards the churches, seven are spared, and undergo a process as incredible as it is absurd. They are lifted and placed on rails, then moved and hidden behind housing blocks, while several other buildings — such as the Polish Synagogue — are masked by socialist panel buildings. Withdrawn from the cityscape, interpolated in the disparate architecture that shapes Bucharest’s urban landscape today, they live secret lives, holding unresolved remnants of the past.
Combining recent photographs with archival material, Mobile Churches is a critical inventory aiming at revealing a lesser-known, yet fascinating, urban and political story.