Tinseltown*

Tinseltown is a documentary project on the changing urban order in post communist Romania. Started in 2000-2001, then continued in 2003 and in 2008, Tinseltown is connected with the new residential architecture in the (former nomadic) communities of Rroma craftsmen. The research produced immediate explicit events (photographic portfolio, exhibitions, an installation that became part of an international display, several publications). Without a doubt it has also had a larger implicit impact. Critical exegeses that followed, diploma projects, museums’ interest and filmed documentation are signs of the re-positioning of the public sensitivity when facing the controversial phenomenon of Gypsy architecture, which was until then treated with arrogance and contempt. *A project by Mariana Celac, Iosif Kiraly and Marius Marcu-Lapadat