Minitremu is an art education association founded in 2013, which develops programs for children and young people, using artistic processes as means of reflection and critical expression. It is the educational extension of the artistic duo Monotremu, formed by Laura Borotea and Gabriel Boldiș.
In a fragile institutional context, in which artistic education remains largely focused on the production of “beauty” and limited to the traditional study of music, drawing and painting, Minitremu proposes alternatives based on direct encounters with contemporary artists, architects and theorists. It introduces practices absent from the curriculum (performance, installations, interventions in public space, sound art, video art, zines) using art as a pretext for conversations about ecology, about identity, about the concrete lives of young people and about the world in which they live.
The working model is located at the intersection of contemporary art and critical pedagogy, in a socially engaged education, addressed to real communities. We create contexts in which caring for others, solidarity and collective development contradict the logic of competition and measured performance that even school reproduces – and in which young people can gain their own voice and tools for positioning themselves in the world they live in.
Minitremu’s activity began in 2013 in Târgu Mureș, together with the ARTeast / B5 Studio Foundation of artist Bartha József, through projects that created bridges between the Romanian and Hungarian communities of the city. Over time, it has developed a set of modular wooden toys that reinterpret the Târgu Jiu Sculptural Ensemble by Constantin Brâncuși, an Activity and Coloring Book with drawings by Dan Perjovschi, also translated into English and Hungarian, a free contemporary art camp for teenagers and young people, complemented by various programs and projects, and by the teaching activity of Laura Borotea, who introduced the optional contemporary art course in several high schools.
After ten years of activity, the association inaugurates in Timișoara, Minitremu (Un)Learning Center – an open and collaborative space, in continuous transformation, which functions as a permanent exhibition, public library, workspace, agora and garden, in the desire to provide an overview of recent changes in artistic pedagogy and to challenge traditional methods of education through art. It hosts thematic exhibitions, debates, presentations of platforms and books, screenings, workshops, residencies, pedagogical and architectural practices, training for teachers, meetings with pupils and students. It includes a radio platform and a public library oriented towards multi- and interdisciplinary exploration and towards the connections between art, architecture, education and society.
Minitremu has carried out projects with schools, high schools and universities, in partnership with local and international institutions and organizations: Magma, B5 Studio, Fabrica de Pensule, Reactor, Casa Tranzit, Salonul de Proiecte, tranzit.ro, Arhiva de Sunet, ABC Brussels, Zachęta National Gallery Warsaw. They were residents at MeetFactory Prague and within the Camp – Notes on Education program, part of documenta fifteen. The association was awarded at The Most Beautiful Books in Romania (2014) and at the AFCN Awards Gala for Cultural Communication and Mediation (2019).
Currently, they collaborate with Casa Jakab Toffler, a community activation initiative in the Fabric neighborhood, with which, together with an interdisciplinary team (architects, artists, landscape architects), they were nominated for the Mies van der Rohe European Architecture Prize (2024). In the same year, Minitremu coordinated the thematic file dedicated to artistic education in ARTA magazine, no. 68–69: “How to bring a classroom to life, as if it were a work of art.”
