Cultural intimacy in art at the national cultural institute – the case of the Romanian Cultural Institute of Stockholm

Giorgiana Zachia presents her practice on cultural intimacy writing about the specific work with contemporary art in the frame of a national cultural institute.

Stefan Constantinescu, Archive of Pain, video installation, 2000

In my text about cultural intimacy, I discussed the concept’s relevance for the work of national cultural institutes: the analytical separation between what a nation, a community or a couple displays externally and what they share internally; the intimate dimension of what makes people feel they belong together; the occurrence or risk of embarrassment and shame and the very dealing with things that may cause these feelings. These aspects are important parts of what makes up culture, in both its anthropological and artistic sense, and cultural intimacy involves conceptual tools that help us become aware and reflexive about it.

Pride and prejudice of the national cultural institute: cultural diplomacy/cultural intimacy

Giorgiana Zachia writes about the role given to contemporary art at national cultural institutes in the perspective of cultural intimacy.

Videograms of a Revolution, Harun Farocki

A national cultural institute, in a traditional perspective, is a lot about pride, and quite a lot about prejudice. Pride in the sense that the basic idea with the institutes is to exhibit the nation’s best and most authentic cultural products – distinguished writers, finest art, best design etc. Prejudice in the form of expectations among the public in the countries where they are active, meaning that a visit to a particular national cultural institute is likely to produce an impression that this or that nation indeed has some unique and essential qualities. This traditional perspective of the cultural institutes is still valid but it has been accompanied by a more flexible praxis in relation to changes in our contemporary world. There is not so much self-reflexivity going on though, with regards to the role of the institutes and to the idea of national culture in the first place.