Gathering in Moldova - spiritual recharging and creative amusement with Art Labyrinth

Published on May 22, 2014

Budapest

Seen from the outside the old mu­seum’s build­ing seems to be aban­doned. Only the col­or­ful posters of up­com­ing con­certs and movie screen­ings pined on the front door are implying that some­thing is going on in­side. En­ter­ing at the creak­ing door we found our­selves a shady cor­ri­dor cov­ered by bizarre con­tem­po­rary art works which takes us to the pleas­ant gar­den of the for­mer mu­seum. In the tea-gar­den small groups of young peo­ple are chill­ing out at the ex­tem­po­ral glass ta­bles made from books and plex­i­glasses and en­joy­ing the first warm beams of the sun by a cup of tea. In front of the ta­bles on the stage a dance re­hearsal is going on, while in a far cor­ner drum play­ers are prac­tic­ing for their next per­for­mance.

Every­one needs a place in the city

How­ever Art Labyrinth was es­tab­lished as an NGO just after the first sum­mer fes­ti­val in 2008, however the mem­bers of the cre­ative as­so­ci­a­tion started to work to­gether years be­fore. At the be­gin­ning they wanted to find some cre­ative and artis­tic ac­tiv­i­ties with which they could break the mo­not­ony of every­day life. They started to make ce­ram­ics which was fol­lowed by sev­eral ex­per­i­men­ta­tions with new tech­niques and ma­te­ri­als. The final works were pre­sented in ex­hi­bi­tions or­ga­nized by the mem­bers of the group and their friends at their own charge. Music was the other im­por­tant im­pulse in­spiring them. After vis­it­ing sev­eral artis­tic music fes­ti­vals, play­ing music, es­pe­cially drum­s was also in­cluded in the list of their ac­tiv­i­ties. The idea of a sum­mer fes­ti­val – be­side nu­mer­ous other plans – came sud­denly, and they re­garded it mostly as a trial which was in­spired partly by the events of tem­po­rary in­ter­na­tional com­mu­ni­ties such as Rain­bow Gath­er­ing. The fes­ti­val ended with un­ex­pected suc­cess. In­stead of the es­ti­mated fifty par­tic­i­pants the event was vis­ited by five hun­dred vis­i­tors, which en­cour­aged the or­ga­niz­ers to reg­is­ter the as­so­ci­a­tion as an NGO and to cre­ate per­ma­nent art stu­dios and a pub­lic cul­tural cen­tre. In 2011, after some tem­po­rary sta­tions, they moved into the build­ing of Muzeul Zem­stvei where they can use some of the rooms on fa­vor­able terms until the be­gin­ning of re­cov­ery.

The rai­son d’étre of Art Labyrinth was and is con­firmed by the con­stant pres­ence of vis­i­tors. The cul­tural venue pro­vides a unique haven for all those who feel, lit­er­ally or fig­u­ra­tively, that they can’t find their place in the city. The in­di­vid­ual de­sign of the rooms cre­ates a peace­ful, cozy at­mos­phere which makes Art Labyrinth a per­fect meet­ing-point for a cup of tea and de­lec­table dis­cus­sions. At the same time sev­eral work­shops such as drum and dance lessons, lan­guage lessons, fire camp and dif­fer­ent per­for­mances of local and in­ter­na­tional mu­si­cians, the­atre com­pa­nies and reg­u­lar movie screen­ings pro­vide the vis­i­tors op­por­tu­ni­ties for spir­i­tual recharg­ing and for im­prov­ing their tal­ents. Alexan­der, a char­ter mem­ber of the as­so­ci­a­tion, finds the latter one of the most im­por­tant po­ten­tial of Art Labyrinth. ‘You should try to be bet­ter to­mor­row than you were today in the ac­tiv­i­ties you are in­volved’ de­fines one prin­ci­ple of his life phi­los­o­phy which he also tries to keep in mind when they de­cide about the next steps of the as­so­ci­a­tion. Un­usu­al­ness, ex­per­i­menter at­ti­tude and open-mind­ed­ness are those char­ac­ter­is­tics which seem to be com­mon in the vis­i­tors of Art Labyrinth. These at­trib­utes are the key el­e­ment of self-de­vel­op­ment, how­ever they can make in­te­gra­tion more dif­fi­cult in some cases. Hence can be this place a sig­nif­i­cant sta­tion for many peo­ple where they can find what they were look­ing for: a com­mu­nity, a peace­ful shel­ter or even their per­sonal free­dom.

Ex­pe­ri­ence of free­dom

The most im­por­tant event of Art Labyrinth, the three-days-long sum­mer fes­ti­val, which will be sit­u­ated in the North of Moldova, near Edinet this year, opens the door to the ex­pe­ri­ence of free­dom. The an­nual sum­mer fes­ti­val of al­ter­na­tive art, cul­ture and eco-life refers even in its name to the main com­po­nents of the event: cre­ativ­ity, eco-sus­tain­abil­ity and ac­tive par­tic­i­pa­tion that is not just to see, but to be part of the ac­tions. The fes­ti­val fo­cuses on gain­ing new ex­per­i­ences with open mind and clear head in con­trast to those events where hal­lu­cino­genic and light drugs are usu­ally in­cluded. No al­co­hol, no drugs and non-ag­gres­sive­ness are the basic rules which every par­tic­i­pants has to keep in order to pre­serve the at­mos­phere of the event undis­turbed and pleas­ant.

In ad­di­tion to the sim­ple rules of par­tic­i­pa­tion the con­sciously cho­sen place of the event plays a key role in en­sur­ing a smooth ex­pe­ri­ence dur­ing the fes­ti­val. Every year the event moves to a new place which should be close to a river and far from any built-up area. Be­side the fes­ti­val’s am­bi­tion of leav­ing be­hind any forms and achieve­ments of the civ­i­liza­tion, the ab­sence of built-up areas be­came im­por­tant from a prac­ti­cal as­pect, namely the lack of ter­ri­to­r­ial bor­ders, cor­dons or en­tries, in the last few years. Al­though ac­ces­si­bil­ity and open­ness can make it eas­ier for new en­quirer to join to the campers, it can also at­tract un­de­sired guests. Sit­u­at­ing the fes­ti­val in a dis­tant, rel­a­tively hardly ap­proach­able place guar­an­tee that only mo­ti­vated par­tic­i­pants will come up on the spot.

The or­ga­niz­ers start land­scap­ing and build­ing up the fes­ti­val two weeks be­fore the open­ing. They use only those ma­te­ri­als and nat­ural fa­cil­i­ties which can be found in the field to set up the sites and set out the com­monly used areas. This eco-friendly method sim­pli­fies the clean­ing of the area after the end of the fes­ti­val and the as­so­ci­a­tion can also save money on the trans­port of the equip­ments. Non-com­mer­cial­ism is es­sen­tial dur­ing the event. Par­tic­i­pants can not buy or sell any­thing for money, but in fact it doesn’t mean any dif­fi­culty as every­thing what they need can be found in the na­ture. Al­ways chang­ing lo­ca­tion of the fes­ti­val serves as an in­ex­haustible source of cre­ativ­ity. The new land­scape in­spires not only the de­sign and set­ting of the sites, but also puts those artists to the test who work on the land-art site of the fes­ti­val mak­ing site spe­cific in­ter­ven­tions or cre­at­ing ephemeral art­works from nat­ural ma­te­ri­als. How­ever, not just the artists can test their abil­i­ties, sev­eral chal­leng­ing work­shops and sem­i­nars such as ac­ro­batic yoga, fire school, drum lessons or hand­crafts work­shops can be at­tended by vis­i­tors. In ad­di­tion to ac­tive recre­ation’s ac­tiv­i­ties, per­for­mances by local and in­ter­na­tional groups as well as the­atre com­pa­nies and movie screen­ings will take place dur­ing the three days. Par­tic­i­pa­tion as a main com­po­nent of the fes­ti­val not only means at­ten­dance of the events, but can also mean vol­un­teer­ing in the or­ga­ni­za­tion and re­al­iza­tion of the fes­ti­val. Vol­un­teers can join to the team any time, even dur­ing the fes­ti­val, as a help­ing hand is al­ways wel­comed for ex­am­ple in the kitchen or at the child care.

End­less row of ideas

How­ever, the mem­bers of the as­so­ci­a­tion are oc­cu­pied by dead-work, they still go on col­lect­ing new ideas for the up­com­ing and fu­ture fes­ti­vals. They con­sider es­sen­tial in the fu­ture to make it clearer that ex­pe­ri­ence plays the lead­ing part in the fes­ti­val. There­fore they want to lay stress on work­shops and sem­i­nars as well as on new games and ac­tiv­i­ties which would be able to in­volve and mo­ti­vate par­tic­i­pants in a bet­ter way. They also want to em­pha­size the im­por­tance of eco-sus­tain­abil­ity not just dur­ing the fes­ti­val, but also in every­day life, and for this they find rel­e­vant to or­ga­nize more sem­i­nars and dis­cus­sions and maybe even to cre­ate a group, which can start a small pro­ject in the cap­i­tal city. Art Labyrinth never lacked new ideas, but in order to re­al­ize them, Alexan­der thinks that the as­so­ci­a­tion as well as their work­ing meth­ods should be more or­ga­nized. This could also open the door to new co­op­er­a­tion with other artis­tic or­ga­ni­za­tions on the local scene and abroad as well as in­creasing their chances on open calls. The lat­ter would be par­tic­u­larly im­por­tant for Art Labyrinth since at this mo­ment do­na­tions and fees of the events mean the only fi­nan­cial re­source. They still have to figure out the hows and the whys of it, however, I be­live that with their end­less en­ergy and im­pe­tus they will surely find a way.