Matei Bejenaru

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Matei Bejenaru’s practice is shaped by the intersection of documentary image, social observation and institutional work within the Romanian contemporary art scene. Born in 1963, he is based in Iași, where he teaches photography and video at George Enescu Arts University. His artistic activity has developed across photography, video, performance and intermedia installation, with sustained attention to post communist social change, migration, labour, technological knowledge and the politics of representation. Projects such as Travel Guide and Maersk Dubai examined Romanian labour migration towards Western Europe and were included in international contexts such as Tate Modern, London, and the Taipei Biennial. From 2010, his experimental choral project Songs for a Better Future extended this enquiry into the relation between collective voice, public space and social imagination, with presentations at The Drawing Room and Tate Modern in London, Western Front in Vancouver and Künstlerhaus Büchsenhausen in Innsbruck. His later photographic projects, including Prut, Slide Diapozitiv and Print, return to analogue processes, materiality and the status of the photographic witness. Alongside his individual practice, Bejenaru founded the Periferic Biennial in Iași, co founded Vector Association and helped establish the Center of Contemporary Photography in Iași, contributing to the institutional visibility of contemporary art in Romania.