A new academic publication explores Bucharest through literary and visual micronarratives, bringing together research, mapping, and artistic practice. The project is the result of a collaboration between Alina Cristea (LUCA School of Arts / KU Leuven), Mira Sanders (KU Leuven – Faculty of Architecture, campus Sint-Lucas Brussels and Ghent), and Ileana Marin (University of Bucharest / University of Washington).
The study examines how small-scale urban situations—fleeting encounters, marginal spaces, and everyday gestures—can be mapped and interpreted as meaningful cultural narratives. Using photography, text, drawing, film, and mixed media, the authors create an annotated map of Bucharest that captures the city through fragments rather than grand historical narratives.
In her contribution, Ileana Marin focuses on literary perspectives that animate the urban fabric. Referring to Doina Ruști’s fiction, she notes:
“Ruști’s brave, diligent female characters wander and pull together the narrative threads as a powerful attractive force.”
The project positions Bucharest as a city read through movement, memory, and lived experience, where literature and visual research intersect to reveal hidden layers of urban meaning.
The study places Doina Ruști’s fiction within a Romanian urban literary tradition that begins with Mateiu I. Caragiale and extends to contemporary narrative forms focused on the city as a symbolic and memorial space.
🔗 More details:
Micronarratives and the City – An Annotated Map of Bucharest
Through photography, text, drawing, film, and mixed media, the authors (Ileana Marin, Alina Cristea and Mira Sanders) explore the mapping of (micro) situations witnessed in the city of Bucharest.
