Michel MazzoniDumitru

“Dumitru is a project started in 2015. The corpus of images that composes it comes mainly from archives relating to the period of the reign of the Ceaucescu dictatorship in Romania (1974/1989). Missed Utopias, lost dreams, technologies that have become obsolete … For four years, I drew on these images, scrutinized and enlarged their surfaces, revisited places by making new shots, trying out new assemblies, such as a montage game, until evidence emerges. The book is a posthumous tribute to Dumitru Bedeleu who had meticulously kept these documents and without whom I could not have realized it. This was for me a starting point, to experiment with new data and come to hinder the purely documentary nature of photography. The book was thought as simply and radically as possible. The double pages combine the principles of echo and telescoping. No binding, no cover. The pages can be organized in a different order, it is possible to fold them or pin them on the wall … All the writings are grouped on a red card in the center of the book. The color used is symbolic at this time, the cardboard overflows of one centimeter on two sides, which makes it apparent when the book is closed. The paper used gives a sensation and touch close to these period newspapers.”

— Michel Mazzoni