Ceci n’est pas un vote is an exhibition born from the Visual Arts section of the Rășinari Summer School project, carried out between August 23rd and 29th 2020 in the village of Rășinari, near Sibiu. Following a national call for applications, this edition has selected eight undergraduate and graduate students from the National Arts University in Bucharest and the Arts and Design Faculty of the West University in Timișoara.
Ceci n’est pas un vote is an exhibition centred around the idea of voting. Stencilling, also known as pochoir, was initially used in industrial and military environments, to mark types of equipment and devices. Starting in the ’80s, the graffiti movement adopted it and started to use it as a form of fast-growing urban art.
The theme moulds perfectly to the current times. It is socially and politically marked, but without showing any affinities or contempt towards any of the parties running in the elections. I wanted a debate about the importance of voting today and on what its validation or annulment means. The works contain pictures, picture-text hybrids or simply manifest texts – from the word "vot" [vote] in a hangman game to "anul.at 2020" [annu(a)l.led 2020], "Bagă la cap" [Get It In Your Head], "Be the change", featuring a hipster Vlad Țepeș, or Cioran’s portrait with his aphorism "Oamenii se împiedică de adevăr" [People stumble over the truth], to the urge "use your voice / use your vote".
The title of the exhibition, Ceci n’est pas un vote (This Is Not a Vote), was inspired by René Magritte’s famous painting "Ceci n’est pas une pipe". According to this play on image and text, this exhibition is not about VOTING, but we have certainly proposed several manifest scenarios around the idea of VOTING.
— Mihai Zgondoiu