Welcome to Baraka, an old abandoned building turned into an artist-run space, founded by four students, at that time. While wandering around in the alleys of Timișoara, after getting rejected for a short period of time from FAD (The West University’s arts and design faculty), the lads finally found a place where their works belongs. More so, the individuals fused conceptually not just as a group, but also with their space.

Mihai, Paul, David and Adi have a distinguished relation to art. When I went there, I felt that in front of me were not some posers that just wanted to finish an arts school because it was the cool thing to do. Quite the opposite. I met the guys in March 2017 during a winter camp. They invited me to their crib. Needless to say, the visit was worth it.

Their story with Baraka started nearly four years ago. In Romanian, “baracă” means “hovel”. They were looking for a place where they can practice their art, any place with a roof on top. The abandoned building, which they stayed in illegally for some time, was not at its best shape during the start. Nevertheless, they managed to clean around and do some fixings.

When visiting, they take you on a tour and explain to you some of their installations, paintings and sculptures. Unlike the majority of other artists, they encourage you to touch and interact with the artwork. They want you to understand it by any means possible. “Questions are always welcome”, says Mihai.

During my stay, Paul plays some tunes on a Spanish guitar. His main signature in his pieces is the human ear. He’s fascinated by it and can’t help but make sculptures of it, or at least focus quite heavily on this anatomical part in his paintings. Nevertheless, he’s playing noticeably out of tune and off scale. “I just play what I feel”, replied Paul dismissively.

Adi is also musically oriented; he manipulates the sound waves through an amplifier, in order to generate different shapes on light materials kept in a transparent box. The bass frequencies blow up hair, shredded tape from audio cassettes and fly wings that he collected with a lot of patience. The process was highly time consuming, yet rewarding in the end, for that was the day his masterpiece was born.