streams of stray lines

This past month, like the previous ones of 2023, I have been running on overdrive. Long story short, personal problems and impending burnout are bogus no collaborator believes. It’s a weird thing I didn’t crash and enter numb mode, considering the fact that my grandmother passed away a little over a month ago. Guess I’ve built a labyrinth of work to obstruct any emotional interaction. Here are fragments of what kept me busy in April/May. Among them: the premier of Rhinoceros, 80 pages worth of comics translated into Polish and organised into 32 panels for the Romanian Cultural Institute in Kraków, Ceau Cinema’s posters and…

A project very close to my heart, which is seriously lagging behind because I have to respect all other deadlines, is crammed online here: mestering.ro alongside Ioana Ciolea’s photographs and Felix Petrescu’s fine recordings of an interview series comprising local craftsmen, among them Mrs Rodica Obradov and Mr Dragoș Nuță, more uploads soon to come.

And some images from the biennial through which I tried to share some of the lessons I learned together with my grandma. Plus pics with two of the few people to visit her and our lab back in 2022: Alex Bodea and partner Luminița Rațiu.

🕸 work process for Ionesco’s Rhinoceros, premiering at Teatrul Tineretului Piatra Neamț this month, and sketches from a post-it booklet included in a 3 piece comics churning combo, part of Energie! program 🪲

On the 1st of May 2022, after a cemetery visit, started playing together with my grandmother. I encourage anyone who has trouble in reaching out to their loved ones, beyond the borders of political fights and trauma thorns, to give interactive playfulness a chance. Over the past year, we gathered a couple of walls full of floral frenzy and a handful of figurines, however my senior collaborator’s state has been deteriorating since March so she probably won’t make it to the Art Encounters Biennial to see the printed version of our exercises.

This collection of exercises is an attempt to forge a playground in the final years of life. I am grateful to Adrian Notz and Diana Marincu for the invitation to pursue this project, Alina Cioară for her kind words, Luminița Daneș for her advice, Monica Dănilă for saving my ass in matters of communication conundrums, Palpabil and Fabrik for overseeing the binding and printing process. 100 risograph copies of the booklet will be distributed during the biennial and the file (without its comic inserts) is available online here.

December through February had a rough couple of months, so this post is a mish-mash of collaborations, sketches, pics, bits floating around. Early December, Luminița Vâlcea and Ioan Petre introduced me to David and by mid December we had this tiny vaccine calendar guide for newly borns. Really enjoyed our visit to their family doctor and tracing the delicate moments this little guy shared with me. >>> Flip through the guide here <<<

Since my hometown of Timișoara is one of the European Capitals of Culture in 2023, I applied for a sort of scholarship through Centrul de Proiecte and am currently researching workshops around the city. Going through archives and processing interviews into comic strips involves a kinda fast draw I have yet to master. Punky, aka Ioana Ciolea is handling the photography and old time soundscape synthesiser Wakax of Makunouchi Bento is in charge of some sound waves. Final piece should be showcased somewhere around April-June, depending on how the tidal waves of chance choose to turn.

Finally, here are some slides from my ongoing collaboration with Teatrul Tineretului din Piatra Neamț.

🦖🦕🦤 Magyarosaurus Dacus is the name of a dinosaur and the title of Gianina Cărbunariu’s latest play, staged in Oradea’s somptuous Szigligeti Theatre. The production of the visual pack was fast paced, covering a 🪤📚🗃 24 page catalogue, flyers and adapting formats for web&print took under a month.

Very grateful for the team’s support, Kinga Boros handled the documentation, Irina Moscu dazzled the crew with multi-coloured costumes and Cristi Niculescu set up the lights, neon installations and video venture. Cropped up around the controversial figure of the Baron Nopcsa, the production breaks down the family tree and Ferenc Nopcsa’s multiple personalities into the reflective mosaic maze of a legend. The dramatic piece started out from Ionuț Sociu’s article, researching the palaeontologist aristocrat’s twisted tale.

🎢 👻 ✨ Flip through >>> the bilingual presentation here <<< 👀🕴

some November process sheets, stories and posters for Teatrul Tineretului din Piatra Neamț.

🔮In this instalment of The Almost Twilight Zone, we shed light on the haunted house of the old textile manufacturer Jakab Toffler, of the Fabric quarter in Banat’s little Viena.🐱🦇🐅 >>> https://issuu.com/sorivazelina/docs/toffler_big_4707954a7e8241 <<< 🐈🐈‍⬛🐶

The spreads are excerpts from a recent comic done in collaboration with Casa Toffler and Minitremu.

Labor in small town Romanian factories for global brands and the ramified implications of pushing families to their limits, both in the local frame as well as in the chain of underpaid wages around the E.U.. Link to the article written by Raluca Perneș for the team of Antropedia 🪆 in Romanian 🪑 and 🧹in English 📈 as featured in Lefteast.org. Above, on the left, lies the final illustrated piece (which I am very proud of) from Ecluze pe Bega, a project by Dala and D.proiect, which included a big ass map as well as a presentation booklet.

Back in 2017, together with two compadres, we developed the visual identity of the Theatre of Youth in Piatra Neamț. In June I wound up collaborating with Gianina Cărbunariu’s team yet again, this time on their 33rd edition of the festival. Since this particular theatre is home to some of the most daring pieces developed in Romania, I welcomed the challenge of concocting the whole visual pack in a little over a month. Summer went by without a vacation, a thick layer of screen time tan and a heavy load of experience delving into slices of drama being played out 146km away from the Ukrainian border.

The lady who invited me to join the Scena9 crew, alongside Andra Matzal, has left the team to pursue a career in investigative journalism. Can’t wrap my brains around what this change’ll entail and anything I’ve tried to scribble down’s just stale facts. The series of illustrations which turned out the smoothest were the ones about the abuses going on behind the scenes of theaters around the country. Needless to say (yet I still find myself reiterating it) the work wouldn’t have turned out like this without Luiza’s encouragement and blind trust in my dwindling craft.

Here are my latest illustrations for the publication, two of which were in collaboration with Luiza Vasiliu, and a few collage bits for Vlad Odobescu’s hefty documentation of architectural tectonic plates playing around Cluj’s neighbourhoods.

🐿 Started documenting this collection of comics back in spring 🌸, but it doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of my recent experience with homeless people. Whether it’s the 🌑🌀🔻booze blues or friends in need 🩸 🧨 ⏰, trauma 🚩🗯 🪓 or 🧪 substance abuse 🎲 🎻 💊, most of the people living in vulnerable conditions on the fringes of Timisoara face a shit load of obstacles, including an almost complete lack of housing. Initially I was invited to promote this project, but I finally gave up on doing commissioned work. Flip through the publication here >>> https://issuu.com/sorivazelina/docs/homeless_full <<<

A short list of local shelters is featured on this site, as well as on the back cover of the publication.

Left my studio in early January, a lot of stuff started pilling up as my brother took over the space, let my grandma cross over some of the working process for the suitcase, almost broke the installation on the way to the flea market where I was supposed to showcase it today, on the 31st of July, feel like an idiot but hey! At least I managed to water the greenhouse enough to foster this little pumpkin. Still learning to be a complete failure, might get it right someday soon.

some recent work including 🍉 a vortex poster for Ceau, cinema! on the occasion of their 9th edition 💙 a poster for a poem by Alex Higyed and the posterxpoem project, Alex and part of the Glitch crew in the pic 🍌 Piatra Neamț Theatre Festival save the date materials aaand 🛶 ⛵️🌾 a bit of the Ecluze pe Bega project we’ve been developing for the past 3 months.

part of my final suitcase about the past and present of Timișoara 🪵 all of the painted materials are based on my research, documenting local businesses and the news that roamed around some 200-100 years ago 🩰 strange part is that somehow these swamp lands seem to be sinking into loop holes time and again 🌑 but then again, on a global scale shit keeps hitting the fan so the whole local frame of mind’s probably just a skimpy reproduction of the bigger picture 🤯 hopefully will complete my quest by the end of the week and post the final ensemble