The visual history of Romanian protests in the last decade, gathered in Protest album

Cristina Blanaru CSR, Media

Documentaria, a platform dedicated to documentary photography, with the support of Funky Citizens, announced the launch of a non-profit project that aims to see published PROTEST album, a visual history of Romanian street movements during the last decade. The album includes 5 chapters and over 350 images, along with a sociological documentation compiled by Dani Sandu.

The over 200 pages of the album documents the protest marking Romania’s recent history, from the unions’ movements in 2010 to the protests against health reforms in 2012 and until the protest against exploatations in Rosia Montana and Pungesti, Colectiv related protests and the recent protests against the Governmental Emergency Ordinance 13 this year.

The album also includes a graphical timeline of most protests during last 10 years, documented by  Vlad Odobescu (Hubert H. Humphrey Fellow 2014-2015 at Arizona State University) and made by Quickdata.

The project aims for a better understanding of protests in Romania during the last decade (the development of protests as civic expression, from union movements to spontaneous movements), to leave a mark for future generations (a visual archive for future generation with protest seen through the eyes of  professional photographers, which already had their images going around the world) and to start a dialogue with the Romanian public via a caravan that will go to the Romanian towns.

The album will be published from the money gathered from pre-orders (an album costs RON 90 – around 20 euro).

Among the photo-journalists that contribute with their images to the album are: Adrian Câtu (photographer National Geographic), Andreea Alexandru (Associated Press photographer with photos from 2017 protests published in TIME, The New York Times, BBC etc.), Andrei Pungovschi (awarded in 2017 by National Press Photographers Association from United States), Daniel Mihăilescu – Agence France Presse, Ioana Moldovan (published on The New York Times’ Lens blog and Al Jazeera), Vadim Ghirda (Associated Press, awarded this year at World Press Photo).

The album will be published both in Romanian and English, in premium conditions, with a detachable super-cover which could be used as poster. Also, via a free AR app Artivive, the buyers can access video materials from protests.

The partners of the project are Decât o Revistă, Expirat, Communitary Foundation Bucharest, INQUAM Photos, NETOPIA MobilPay, casadetraduceri.