Bucharest, 1982-1988. For a few years, Ceausescu has been applying his ‘systematization’ program to the Romanian capital: a third of the historic centre has been razed to make way for imposing buildings, while wide avenues that celebrate the regime cut through the city. In spite of a particular violence against the churches, seven of them are spared and undergo a process as incredible as it is absurd: lifted, and placed upon rails, they are then moved and concealed by housing blocks. Subtracted from the city’s skyline, they live secret lives interpolated between disparate architecture which reflects the chaos of the city.
Combining photographs and archival material, MOBILE CHURCHES is the result of precise planning but not devoid of a certain absurdity. Intended as a visual and critical inventory, it reveals a lesser-known yet fascinating political and urban story.
Born and raised in Bucharest, Anton Roland Laub moved to Germany in 2000 where he studied at the Neue Schule für Fotografie and the Weissensee Kunsthochschule Berlin. As a photographer his attention is focused on the history of Bucharest as well as the scars of Ceausescu’s dictatorship.
The exhibition will be presented again in January 2018 at the Romanian Culture Institute in Paris.
A book will be published by Kehrer Verlag (trilingual edition).
With the support of Picto Foundation