it – a space for it, Timișoara
30 Oct. 2025, 17:00
The AnnART Performance Festival (1990–1999) was held ten times near Lake Sfânta Ana, formed in a volcanic crater in the Ciomad Mountains. The aim of the AnnART Archive is to digitize the documentation of over 200 artistic actions carried out by nearly 150 local and international artists, as well as the organizational efforts and institutional history that underpinned them, with the goal of creating a public digital archive. Through this initiative, we intend to create a research infrastructure for further research on contemporary art phenomena, the artists and works created in this context, as well as the public discourse that has formed around them.
The wave of performance art that emerged in Central and Eastern Europe was organically linked to an emotionally intense period. The regime change in 1989 made it possible to (re)approach the public space, which, with the disappearance of censorship, could be filled with new content, forms of expression, and opportunities for collaboration.
The AnnART documentation, created through the meticulous archiving work of artist Gusztáv Ütő, the festival’s main organizer, provides us with a rich collection that allows for a critical re-evaluation of the transition period—both for the professional community formed around the festival and for the general public.
The archiving project is essential for transmitting the cultural heritage of the region and for understanding the self-organizing efforts of civil society, which gradually connected to international networks. By developing museological methodologies dedicated to performance and ephemeral art forms, the project contributes to the community-based reactivation of this intellectual heritage.
During the presentation, Ágnes Evelin Kispál, Attila Kispál, and Szilárd Miklós, curators of the archive project, will discuss the project’s objectives, methodological challenges, and achievements to date, while also presenting a selection of video materials and images from the archive.
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Organizer MAGMA Contemporary Medium & SIMULTANorg
Co-funded by AFCN – Administration of the National Cultural Fund
Partners ETNA Fundation, The National Szekler Museum
Image: Etna Archive (AnnART8, 1997)