Romanian and American Cultural Managers On the Go

Gabriela Tudor Memorial Exchange Program:
2010 Fellows are Irina Cios and Ben Pryor

This year the Romanian Cultural Institute in New York and Bucharest are supporting the launch of the Gabriela Tudor Memorial Exchange Program, an initiative of the Gabriela Tudor Foundation in Bucharest and CEC ArtsLink in NYC, aiming to strengthen cultural exchange and collaboration between managers and artists from Romania and the United States. Created with the additional support of the Trust for Mutual Understanding, the fellowship program is dedicated to the memory of Gabriela Tudor, who contributed immeasurably to the development of a livelier and more international Romanian art scene.

The project will take place in Romania and the US between September 21 – November 21, and will include a residency offered to a mid-career arts manager from Romania and the US, respectively. Both residencies offer the opportunity to establish a mutually beneficial exchange of ideas, practices and experiences between Romanian and US artists, arts managers and cultural organizations.

This year’s Gabriela Tudor Fellow from Romania is Irina Cios, art critic, curator and director of the International Center for Contemporary Arts (ICCA) in Bucharest.
Irina Cios will be hosted by 18th Street Art Center in Los Angeles, CA, which supports cutting-edge contemporary art and fosters collaboration and dialogue between artists and arts organizations. During her residency Cios will observe and research the vibrant Los Angeles arts community, meet with numerous media and public practice artists, and deliver presentations about ICCA Bucharest and the Romanian arts community. Through 18th Street’s associations with Los Angeles-area arts institutions, she will also have the opportunity to interact with Otis College of Art’s MFA class in Public Practice, EZTV and Highways Performance Space and Gallery.

The program includes a reciprocal residency in Romania for Thomas Benjamin Snapp Pryor, an independent arts manager, producer and curator operating under the moniker tbspMGMT. His current projects include working with Miguel Gutierrez and the Powerful People, Trajal Harrell, luciana achugar, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Yvonne Meier and Wally Cardona. Ben is also the Producer and Curator for American Realness, an annual festival of contemporary performance in New York City. Previously Ben worked as Director of Operations for Center for Performance Research, an Artist Representative at Pentacle, a project manager for Chez Bushwick and in the Planning and Development department at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Ben served as chair of the Agents Council and Trustee for Dance USA from 2008-2010. tbspMGMT.com. Pryor’s reciprocal residency in Romania will mediate an encounter with the Romanian dance community, and the exploration of the cultural scenes in the cities of Bucharest, Cluj and Bacău.

A second Romanian Fellow will also be participating in the ArtsLink Residencies program this year. Liliana Basarab creates sculptural and multimedia works that translate common conceptions of public monuments into provocative community-produced tributes to popular themes. Her project 'Monuments for Concepts' has been through several iterations including 'Mister Normality' and 'Miss Individualism' and she intends to develop a similarly-constructed, public and web-based artwork drawing on American ideals, in collaboration with a community in the US.