Irina Botea Bucan (b. Ploiesti, Romania) has developed a symbiotic artist-educator-researcher methodological framework that consistently questions dominant socio-political ideas and centralizes human and non-human agency as a vehicle for meaning. Choosing to act in diverse contexts, such as: academic institutions, alternative galleries, museums, art biennials, film festivals and generic community centers; she is currently focusing on the de-centralization of cultural discourses and the possibility of sustaining creative differentiation that arguably exists outside of a dominant hegemonic system of values and critique.
Performance, reenactment, simulated auditions, elements of direct cinema and cinéma vérité are combined in her artistic approach. The works are developed through a process of collaboration in which the performers are participants in the process, while her filmmaker role is shifting from an observational to a reflective, participatory and performative mode. Currently she is faculty at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago(since 2006), Bucharest University of Arts and pursuing a PhD at Goldsmiths University in London.
Solo and group shows include: 55th Venice Biennale, International Film Festival Rotterdam, New Museum, New York, MUSAC (Museum of Contemporary Art of Castilia and Leon), Pompidou Centre, Paris, National Gallery Jeu de Paume, Paris; Kunsthalle Winterthur, Reina Sofia National Museum, Madrid; MUSAC-Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León, Spain, Gwangju Biennale 2010, U -Turn Quadriennial, Copenhagen; 51st Venice Biennale; Prague Bienale; Kunstforum, Vienna; Foksal Gallery, Warsaw, Argos Center for Art and Media, Brussels; MNAC (National Museum of Contemporary Art), Bucharest; Museum of Contemporary Art, Szczecin, Poland, Center for Contemporary Art Ujazdowki Castle, Warsaw. Festivals: Artefact Festival, Leuven, Rotterdam Film Festival, Impakt Panorama, Utrecht; Polis Adriatic Europe Festival; Awards: 3Arts Visual Artis Award, Impakt Film Festival Silver Award, International Residence at Recollets, Cite des Arts, Paris, Constantin Brancusi, etc.