Minitremu Art Camp is a free contemporary art camp for young people and teenagers, which brings together every summer students from theoretical or vocational high schools and first-year college students, along with artists, curators and practitioners active on the national contemporary art scene and beyond. Started in 2016 in Mitrești, in Mureș County, under the premise of creating a meeting space between Romanian and Hungarian teenagers, the camp has undergone various organizational transformations from one edition to another (in duration, format or themes), in order to strengthen its nomadic and democratic character.
The structure of the camp is designed around workshops supported by various guests, who propose exercises and activities that usually start from their own artistic or professional practice: performance, installation, drawing, photography, video, sound, book design, curatorship, ecology, participatory architecture, etc. The lack of pedagogical experience has always been an advantage, instead of teaching methods, acts of pedagogical creation have emerged, and the workshops have transformed into new learning experiences for all those involved.
In addition to workshops, book exhibitions, local excursions or the screening of pre-established films, the camp program is flexible and configured in agreement with all participants, in a form of self-organization that encourages spontaneity and own contributions, ensuring the uniqueness of each edition. In opposition to programs for improving skills acquired in school or the mantra of personal development, Minitremu Art Camp thus offers a context in which adolescents can experience artistic languages that formal education usually does not address, along with current topics and themes that directly concern them. In a somewhat critical period of life (when you are no longer a child, but not an adult either), each edition has transformed into an affective community, a temporary space of solidarity and collective development.
Participation is made following a selection based on a letter of motivation and other materials considered relevant by the applicants (portfolio of photo and video works, literary or essay texts, musical demos, any other content). The results of previous editions (drawings, videos, photographs, textiles, installations, etc.) were presented in traveling exhibitions at B5 Studio, MAGMA Contemporary, tranzit.ro Bucharest, Spațiul 2/2, or at the Art Encounters Biennial (Our Other Us edition).